1) Disagree STRONGLY – increasing excise tax just penalises everyone, especially responsible drinkers

In general, responsible drinkers drink less than irresponsible ones. Increasing excise tax penalises drinkers in relation to how much they’re drinking. So yes, it penalises everyone but it does not penalise everyone to the same degree.

To say “increasing excise tax just penalises everyone, especially responsible drinkers” is incorrect because responsible drinkers are not especially effected.

If details of the report have been “leaked”, how is it that you can confifdently cliam exclusivity? Unless of course you know a lot more about the nature and extent of this “leak” than perhaps you have revealed.

what is unacceptable, being pissed in public or being pissed in public and acting out?
This is such a thin line or could be.

No matter where you squeeze the availability of alcohol, people will find ways of sourcing their cheap “thrills”. We are in an age of artificial quick fixes. The pop-a-pill and piss-up pandemic. The proposed law changes will do little if anything to change that attitude.

I’m not against alcohol. I enjoy a glass or three reasonably regularly (a box of Hawkes Bay red should be waiting on the porch when I get home tonight), but I have learnt from hard experience – I now have an aversion to losing my faculties, and to feeling rat-shit afterwards.

Mind you drunk kiddies in the streets, parents that supply the booze can’t be held to account. This is an area for tweeking.

Particularly the clause pertaining to serving intoxicated persons?

Why don’t bartenders invoke the act and cut off drunk customers? Because their bosses would cut their shifts.

That’s right! 99% of bartenders are casual workers and can be fired with 1 hours notice!

Perhaps if bartenders had even an iota of job security and could not be dismissed for any reason at all (ie: not plying drunks with more booze than they can handle).

Perhaps if bartenders were given the rights they deserve, considering the social responsibility they shoulder, then they would begin enforcing the law.

Casualisation of this particular sector is a BIG PROBLEM in New Zealand I think.

(..almost as bad as speed..)

..with a horrible/dull/deadening low/high..

..and nasty hangovers..(not to mention the obesity..and other longterm effects..)

..and it makes people loud..and very very boring..not to mention aggressive..

are you pissheads all masochists..?..or something..?

..go with the magic collie-herb .. man..!

..it gets you so nice and high..

..and no hangover/aggression etc etc..

..what is wrong with you..?

..are you crazy..?..man..?

phil(whoar.co.nz)

Some think getting drunk is necessary to have a good time, some think it will get them laid, some use it as an excuse to be nasty and try and bash others, some think it cures shyness, some think it proves they are grown up. It’s sad when you see how it really affects them.

Criminalising public drunkeness is an interesting point. The difficulty is defining public drunkeness in such a way to avoid abuse by plod. It is a standard joke amongst defence lawyers that if a cop wants you drunk you are and if they want you sober you are. So if you are charged with obstruction or disorderly or the like then the evidence is “in my experience as a police officer I believed the defendant to be extremely intoxicated” (never just intoxicated) and if its a confession “in my experience as a police officer he was acting intoxicated but was in fact only mildly intoxicated”.

That said I think it has merit I am just not quite sure how to appropriately police it. There really isn’t a great need for drunks to be clogging up our city streets. If you’re too pissed to be in a pub then really you are too pissed to be in town or in public (save for a visit to The Colonel on the way home).

Would providing police powers to temporarily trespass people from certain high use areas for drunkeness work? Guess it could be an ass to enforce but does provide the move on element with little negative effect (same as getting denied from a bar – if they barstaff are wrong its just bad luck not a criminal offence).

I think the general booze culture is a lot harder to change, it is an attitude rather than an offence (although it often becomes an offence). They try and advertise about how getting trashed is far from glamorous, and can be severely damaging, but it doesn’t seem to have much impact.

The saying goes that young people think they are bullet proof. Also, the more pissed they get the more invincible, sexy, better fighters etc etc they think they are, which is inversely proportional to reality, but you can’t reason with a drunk. A major addition to the problem is that older pissheads thinks it makes them younger too. Piss poor role models.

I’d suggest more camera’s in public places, more cops on the street, and harsher penalties for people that breach the law. I think we already have the laws, we just don’t have the resources to enforce them properly on a zero-tolerance basis.

It is that easy to change a culture. Take for example drink driving and seatbelts (as separate examples). Fourty years ago, driving drunk and driving without seatbelts were an acceptable and encouraged part of Kiwi culture. Now they’re not.

Wonder why?

The only groups who would be attracted by relaxed liquor laws are the $20-a-day backpackers. I would rather us try and entice the $500 a day holiday makers who are less likely to want to drink until the sun comes up.

Secondly, high tax is a well-proven way to deter damaging and youth drinking. Without pulling up examples of studies (cos frankly I can’t be arsed) it is well-documented. While being basically centre, I think it is unfortunate that it is generally the left who support such integral and well-researched studies. Perhaps it is not in the business-oriented right’s interest to uncover some home truths?

At any rate, higher taxes on liquor would only represent a few dollars here-and-there for mature / moderate drinkers. Worst case scenario if they’d have to buy a bottle a couple / few dollars down-market from their current choices and as a former hospo worker, I can tell you 99% of them wouldn’t even be able to tell the difference in a blind test.

Kiwi culture generally is quite sick when it comes to alcohol. How can that be changed? Just slapping on restrictions is not going to address it.