KEY POINTS:
It is easy to decry the Government's intended crackdown on liquor outlets as a desperate response to a spate of crime in South Auckland this month. A liquor store owner is shot by booze robbers, another attendant is fatally stabbed in a superette, and those in power blame the outlets.
But the measures proposed by the Prime Minister after Monday's cabinet meeting are based on those already advanced by Manurewa's MP George Hawkins in a bill before Parliament. And Mr Hawkins' bill reflects the efforts of a Manukau City Council member, Daniel Newman, and others who want to tighten control of liquor sales in their locality.
That is what the Government now proposes to give them. Helen Clark said legislation would allow district councils to set up "strategies" that liquor licensing authorities would have to obey. The strategies could restrict hours of opening, the number of outlets, proximity to other outlets and to other premises such as schools.
Crucially, the degree of control would be decided by councils, allowing communities to adopt the restrictions they believe best for them. This is not the usual way of regulating social activities in this country. New Zealand is governed by strongly centralised power and the national ethos tends to be that rights and rules should apply equally to all.
But the state does not have a monopoly on wisdom and where local opinion favours different rules it ought to be able to apply them. The number of liquor outlets in Manukau may not be disproportionate to its population when compared with other districts, and it is hard to see how restrictions in one part of Auckland could stop its residents buying liquor in another, but that is not the point.
If a council believes proliferation is the problem, and that restrictions in its area would do some good, let it impose them. If its citizens do not agree, they have a vote.
Proliferation brings price competition which helps bring alcohol within easier reach of the less affluent, particularly the young. A can of pre-mixed bourbon, we reported on Saturday, costs no more than a soft drink in parts of South Auckland. And liquor is now sold from shops alongside other convenience stores such as dairies and supermarkets which themselves may be selling beer and wines.
The neighbourhood liquor outlet has become as accessible as any small shop and likely to be open a good deal later at night. This sort of service is a boon to customers in other parts of the liquor trade. The ability to buy a bottle of wine well into the evening from a reliable dealer not too far from a BYO restaurant is a convenience that did not exist before deregulation.
Councils that act on the powers now to be delegated to them, will need to be careful they do not make all their citizens suffer less convenience for the sake of eradicating a troublesome element.
They must also try to ensure that their power to control the numbers and proximity of liquor outlets in their communities does not simply protect incumbent traders. That protection is probably impossible to prevent.
It would seem much better to encourage competition, enforce more stringent standards of operating on all, and withdraw trading rights from those that do not measure up.
But if Parliament is of a mind to return to restrictions on the number and location of outlets, at least it will not impose them nationally. Localities will be handed some autonomy. With it, they should be able to encourage the liquor services that suit the character of their community. If that produces liquor law that is more arbitrary and less consistent from place to place, it would be no bad thing. It may be the best way to discover what rules work.
