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The liquor industry has been hit by a grassroots backlash around the country since Manurewa liquor store owner Navtej Singh was killed last year.
Communities at Mairangi Bay, Oranga and Roskill South in Auckland and Cannons Creek in Porirua have all protested against proposed new liquor outlets, drawing 100 people for a march in Porirua on December 8 and almost 1000 signatures on a petition against the latest proposed store in Roskill South across the road from two schools and a kindergarten.
Auckland liquor licensing consultant Peter Swain, who represented the applicant in Roskill South, said community opposition had been growing since the killing of Mr Singh last June.
"I've been doing this now for nearly 20 years and they would not be the first community group to band together to try and stop a liquor outlet on their patch," he said.
"But after the murder in South Auckland during the year, it's becoming more and more so, and talking to our colleagues, it's happening in many communities throughout the country. People are saying we don't want another bottle store on our patch.
"I have some sympathy with them, but the law as it stands allows it to happen."
The applicant in the Roskill South case, Brar Holdings Ltd, withdrew its application to open a liquor store at 8 McKinnon St, opposite Waikowhai Intermediate and Hay Park Primary Schools, five days before the Liquor Licensing Authority was due to hear the case on December 15.
Mr Swain said this was for "personal reasons" and was not in response to the public outcry.
But Auckland Deputy Mayor David Hay, an Avondale-Roskill councillor, said he hoped the city council would change the rules to stop any similar applications in the future.
"The district plan needs to say you can't have a liquor outlet within so many metres of a school, church, public facility or public assembly place, and we need to look at how we control the number of outlets," he said.
Justice Minister Simon Power said the National-led Government would go ahead with legislation tabled by the outgoing Labour Government in August to ban alcohol sales in shops of less than 150sq m and give councils the power to draw up local alcohol plans controlling hours, location and density of liquor outlets.
The bill will go to a select committee to hear public submissions early in the new year.
Mr Swain said the existing Sale of Liquor Act 1989 allowed for liquor licences to be turned down only on very limited grounds - primarily the "suitability of the applicant", the proposed days or hours of business, and what other goods or services would be supplied apart from alcohol.
"The whole concept of the 1989 act was to make it easier to get liquor licences," he said.
"I tell people that provided you can get a certificate from the local authority that you can carry on a liquor business at that site and a licence certifying that the building is sound, you will get a liquor licence."
