KEY POINTS:
With a little help from a local crime wave, the residents of the Manukau suburb of Clendon have turned around what seemed like a juggernaut of liquor liberalisation.
Liquor outlets in the city have roughly trebled since the Sale of Liquor Act made it easier to get licences in 1989, from 186 licences in 1991 to 510 last June. On a per capita basis they have doubled from 0.8 to 1.6 for every 1000 people.
In Clendon, one of the city's poorest areas, there are at least five licences including the local supermarket, the Wiri Licensing Trust's Our Local tavern, a Super Liquor store on Roscommon Rd and two stores on other roads.
Waina Emery of the Clendon Community Support Group, an organisation formed to foster healthy activities for local young people, says the young people in the group had been talking for three years about "making a statement" about proliferating liquor outlets before they finally organised a march in May 2007.
They were galvanised into action when the Finlayson Superette, an almost windowless fortress surrounded by high fences in Finlayson Ave, applied for a liquor licence.
"The kids I was working with had all grown up in the area. It was about living in a safe community," Mrs Emery says.
They spread the word through schools and youth groups with support from the Clendon branch of Community Action on Alcohol and Drugs. They also got support from Manukau city councillor Daniel Newman and from Manurewa Labour MP George Hawkins.
Nearly 100 people joined the march, carrying yellow and white balloons and placards asking people to say no to liquor outlets. And they struck a chord nationwide.
"After we did the march we got feedback from Gisborne, Masterton, Feilding, Blenheim, Christchurch and Hamilton about youth wanting to do a march," Mrs Emery says.
A similar march drew more than 100 people in the low-income area of Cannons Creek near Wellington just before Christmas, and local residents in the past few months have campaigned against new liquor outlets in the Auckland suburbs of Mairangi Bay, Oranga and Mt Roskill.
The Clendon march gave impetus to a private member's bill which Mr Hawkins had already drawn up to give community groups more power to object to proposed liquor licences and require reports on their likely social and economic impacts.
But the bill languished until three Manukau Asian residents were killed within days of each other last June: Manurewa liquor store owner Navtej Singh, 80-year-old Yang Yin Ping who was bashed in a home invasion, and mother Joanne Wang who was run down by a car outside the Manukau mall for the contents of her handbag.
Suddenly, liquor outlets were an issue. Helen Clark, Prime Minister at the time, said she was personally taking the matter extremely seriously.
"It seems to me inevitable that Parliament will have to revisit some of the consequences of the 1989 liquor legislation," she said.
The very next night, Mr Hawkins' bill finally made it into Parliament. And in August the Government introduced its own, much stronger bill giving local councils powers to control the numbers, location and opening hours of liquor outlets.
