KEY POINTS:
Passing a law putting struggling corner stores out of business is certainly one way of ensuring those particular shopkeepers won't be robbed at gunpoint.
Not at those particular stores anyway. But it is a rather odd way of answering the innocent victim's cry for help. A bit more effort in catching the gun-toting stick-up men might be more to the point.
The Government has introduced a bill proposing to remove the liquor licence from any convenience store-cum-liquor outlet if the shop size is less than 150sq m.
The change was sparked by the June shooting of Manurewa liquor store owner Navtej Singh.
Unfortunately for Associate Justice Minister Lianne Dalziel, National MP Chester Borrows, a former policeman, followed up her announcement by revealing that only five of the 43 aggravated robberies of South Auckland shops in the six months before the fatal Manurewa hold-up had been solved.
He also claimed police sources revealed understaffing had led to basic clues not being followed up. The local police chief did not dispute Mr Borrows' figures.
The response of Gurwinder Singh, the murder victim's cousin, to this is that more effort should be put into prosecuting parents who give their underage children alcohol, and into looking at how criminals get firearms.
I'd add the obvious. That more effort should also go into catching the criminals.
Why shouldn't a neighbourhood convenience store carry a little liquor? In these politically correct days, it's surprising this bill doesn't contravene some convention against sizeism. What's going to be achieved by picking on the little corner store while leaving the cut-price supermarkets and dedicated liquor chains to trade on regardless?
If there is a problem of over-indulgence in some areas, better, surely, that customers can stagger up the street for their supplies on two legs rather than be forced into their cars to seek liquor across town.
A few months back I was all for banning aerosol paint spray-cans from retail stores as the quick way to end the multimillion-dollar curse of tagging. The law-makers argued such a ban wouldn't work. It would interfere with the retailers' right to trade, and with the legitimate spray-can user's freedom. If a blanket ban wasn't acceptable then, why is a partial one now?
Of course, the misuse of alcohol is a problem legislators and "experts" have been wringing their hands over since the days of the "hell-hole" that was Kororareka of the 1830s. But pinging the minnows at the bottom of the sales chain just creates more victims.
A Retailers Association spokesman says the focus should be on better policing of the problem areas. Mr Borrows raised in Parliament the high "attrition rate" of 40 per cent of detectives in the Counties Manukau police district over the past 12 months and claimed that 81 of the 103 CIB staff are "not qualified".
Once again, the issue gets back to obtaining and retaining adequate police staff for Auckland. Six years ago, Police Commissioner Rob Robinson budgeted $1 million to cover the costs of bringing in and accommodating out-of-town officers for five-week stints in the Auckland war zone. This was for an emergency four-month period, after which, he said, projections showed recruitment inflows would ease the problems.
In advice to British police thinking of migrating, the Police Association website advises: "There are a number of impoverished areas within the Auckland and Counties-Manukau Districts and organised gangs are prevalent. Together with the usual and predictable problems of high concentrations of people living and working in close proximity, the staff shortage has left Auckland somewhat exposed and its police stretched beyond what is possible to achieve. The effect of staff shortages in Auckland is evident in the latest crime figures, which show a marked increase in overall crime."
Perhaps the best way to fight crime in Auckland is to do the private enterprise thing and pay police the "market" wage it costs to keep them here. One thing seems obvious: persecuting the victims is unjust and will solve nothing.
