28 June 2007

Drinking curbed in Oriental Bay and Mt Victoria

It's now an offence to possess or consume liquor in public places on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights in the Oriental Bay and Mount Victoria Lookout areas.

Wellington City Council approved an amendment to the Liquor Control Bylaw at a meeting today. The liquor ban applies from 5pm on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights until 8am the following morning and already covers public places in the Wellington central area.

The bylaw also allows special bans to be imposed for individual events across the city and imposes a liquor ban for every Christmas and New Year's Eve.

The amendment to the bylaw follows a special consultative procedure as required by the Local Government Act 2002. Forty-one written submissions were received. The majority of submitters supported the proposed amendment. The Strategy and Policy Committee also heard three oral submissions on the matter.

The Council's Social Portfolio Leader, Councillor Stephanie Cook, says the ban is part of a multi-faceted response to residents' and police concerns about alcohol-related anti-social behaviour in Oriental Bay and Mount Victoria.

"The problems are broad, ranging across disorder, traffic, litter and vandalism, so our responses are similarly broad. We've installed CCTV cameras, increased patrols by Walkwise officers, undertaken more regular cleaning of the area, introduced speed humps to the area around the wishing well and shortened response times for noise complaints."

The Council extended the central area liquor ban to Thursday nights in May 2006 and at that time agreed to monitor complaints relating to Oriental Bay and Mount Victoria.

Wellington City Police Area Commander Inspector Peter Cowan says there has since been an ongoing escalation in problems at Oriental Bay that include liquor consumption and associated anti-social behaviour. "The bylaw extension provides us with a useful tool in managing these areas. With the ban working so well in the central city, we were keen to pre-empt people thinking they could just move their drinking to another central location."

The Liquor Control Bylaw does not apply to licensed premises or their outdoor areas, or to people carrying unopened containers directly to or from licensed premises or private residences within the liquor control area. People caught breaching the liquor ban can be arrested by the police and charged with breaching a bylaw.

ENDS

© Scoop Media