ALAC welcomes crackdown on liquor outlets

The Alcohol Advisory Council (ALAC) has welcomed the Prime Minister’s call for a crack down on the number of liquor outlets.

ALAC Chief Executive Officer Gerard Vaughan said communities needed to have a say in the number and location of liquor outlets in their area.

“This is the strong message we have been getting from communities throughout the country,” he said. “There is a lot of frustration out there and things need to change.”

Mr Vaughan said ALAC’s current work programme to change New Zealand’s binge drinking culture needed to be backed up by a regulatory framework that addressed our current problems.

“The Sale of Liquor Act is now almost 20 years old,” he said. “In that time the environment has changed dramatically. We have the increased availability of alcohol through both the number of outlets and the hours they are open; supermarkets are now permitted to sell alcohol and this has lead to strong competition resulting in cheap alcohol; we have new products coming onto the market; and we have a lower minimum purchase age”.

Mr Vaughan said requiring the social impact of alcohol outlets to be considered before new liquor licences were granted and giving local communities the right to object to new outlets being established in their area were some of the measures needed to address communities’ concerns.

Mr Vaughan said ALAC would also like to see any change to legislation to look at other factors that contributed to New Zealand‘s binge drinking culture, such as cheap availability, opening hours and reducing current drink drive limits from 0.08 to 0.05.