District Licensing Committee Dismisses Community Interest

Press statement By Paraparaumu Ward Councillor K Gurunathan Monday 2 nd November 2015

The public will be alarmed to hear that the District Licensing Committee has approved another liquor outlet along Kapiti Road despite opposition from NZ Police, Regional Health, council's Licensing Inspector, and the Paraparaumu Raumati Community Board.

The Committee made the decision on Oct 27 despite being told that there were five other offlicences and five on-licences within 300 meters of the new site at 119, Kapiti Road. The Committee had also been informed that the site was within proximity of the zone approved for the sale of legal highs.

In dismissing evidence from the Police and the Regional Public Health Officer the Committee claimed that the objectors could not prove a direct causal link between the harm cited and the proposed outlet or, for the matter, any Kapiti licensed premises.

The Committee's demand for this level of causal link is not only almost impossible its impractical.

This pedantic interpretation flies in the face of the Law Commission's 2010 report to Parliament 'Alcohol in our Lives: Curbing the Harm'.

In launching the most comprehensive review of liquor laws in more that two decades President of the Law Commission, Sir Geoffrey Palmer, said: “We were required to adopt an evidential approach to the review and the evidence, while unpopular, is clear: alcohol presents a particular risk to our young people.” He added that international research was clear that the most effective policies to reduce alcohol related harm were those which targeted the availability, price and promotion of alcohol.

“We recommend strongly, not to the Government, but to every New Zealand community, that their first resort to curb the problems of alcohol in a community must be action by the community itself,” the Law Commission stated.

The Commission had recommended the creation of a Local Alcohol Policy to give communities the legal tool to reshape the local alcohol culture. It is part of the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act 2012.

KCDC has started one but stopped to gauge the outcome of the LAP of other council's, including Wellington City's, where alcohol business interests had posed legal challenges.

Given the ridiculously pedantic interpretation adopted by Council's District Licensing Committee there is no guarantee that even if Kapiti had a Local Alcohol Policy that it would be given the weight intended by the Law Commission and Parliament.

ENDS

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