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The Liquor Licensing Authority has quietly lifted the bar that small grocery stores must jump over if they want to sell alcohol.
The move is in response to mounting public concerns about proliferating liquor outlets.
In two recent decisions in Wellington and Dunedin, the authority has imposed a new rule that grocery stores cannot sell liquor unless at least 50 per cent of their sales are items either consumed in the home or used to prepare food that will be eaten at home.
The rule will force many corner stores and suburban superettes out of the liquor business because more than 50 per cent of their sales are items such as cigarettes and phone cards which do not meet the new criterion.
Milk, chips and small containers of soft drink are also excluded because they are items that can be sold by dairies, which are banned from selling alcohol under the Sale of Liquor Act.
Many dairies and small superettes have got around the law in the past few years by calling themselves "grocery stores", leading to a perception that liquor outlets have sprung up on every corner. Total "off-licences" selling liquor to take away almost trebled from 1675 in 1990 to 4383 last June.
The former Labour Government tried to tackle the problem by requiring grocery stores to be at least 150sq m before they could sell alcohol. This bill has been picked up by the new National Government and has yet to be passed.
But in the meantime the Licensing Authority has found its own way of tackling the problem. Manukau City Council licensing inspector Paul Radich says he has already recommended that licences should not be renewed for six of Manukau's 25 licensed superettes because they do not meet the new criteria.
"They have made a seismic shift in their thinking because of the proliferation of bottle stores in superettes," he says. "The need for this type of premises to have a liquor licence is significantly reduced because we have grocery stores and so many bottle stores around, not only in Manukau but countrywide."
Manukau has been an epicentre of a nationwide grassroots backlash against proliferating liquor licences since about 100 Clendon residents marched in 2007 against an application to sell liquor in the Finlayson Superette in Finlayson Ave.
The superette's owner at the time withdrew the application and sold the store after the manager's 22-year-old son, Saishwar Krishna Naidu, was stabbed to death in the shop last January.
A spokesman for the new owners, Satnam Singh, says his family would like to apply again to sell liquor but has been told that they will not meet the new criteria.
The family also own the Rata Vine Foodmarket in Wiri which is one of the six superettes where Mr Radich has recommended against renewing liquor licences because of the new criteria.
Mr Singh says that in both cases liquor licences would be good for the community because customers could walk to buy their alcohol and would not need to drink and drive.
"There's a huge demand, but there's always a protest as well," he says.
Liquor licences are usually granted for one year initially and then for three years at a time, so all existing licensees will be required to meet the new criteria or lose their licences during the next three years.
