How can you flout a proposed law?
June 22nd, 2012 at 4:00 pm by David FarrarThe Herald reports:
Labour is accusing National of doing a backroom deal with supermarket giants after a new store apparently flouted proposed law changes by placing alcohol at its front door.
Alcohol reforms due to return to Parliament for their final stages this month would prevent supermarkets from putting beer and wine in places where it could not be avoided by customers.
What silly language. The law has not been passed yet, so you can not be flouting it.
Labour associate health spokesman Iain Lees-Galloway said he was surprised to see alcohol at the front entrance of a Countdown supermarket in Palmerston North which opened on Wednesday.
“I queried that … because obviously the Alcohol Reform Bill as it’s drafted at the moment would make that illegal. It seemed an unusual thing to do when the law change is so imminent.”
Also a silly statement to make. Apart from the fact that the Bill still has committee stage (and at ten parts could take well over a week) and third reading to go, the key clause only comes into effect 12 months after royal assent.
So is Iain saying that he thinks that it takes 15 months to move the location of alcohol in a store?
Mr Lees-Galloway said the managing director told him the supermarket expected this placement to be permitted once Justice Minister Judith Collins’ supplementary order paper (SOP) on the bill was passed.
“He was convinced that there wouldn’t be any need for him to move it once the legislation had been passed with the minister’s SOP.”
I’ve had no discussions with anyone in Government on this issue, but know a bit about it having been briefed on it by some supermarket people. If (and this is a big if) Mr Lees-Galloway is reporting the managing director correctly, then I suspect he is quite wrong.
There is an issue around the definition of thoroughfare in the bill, but not with the principle that alcohol not be displayed in prominent areas such as the entrance. It is simply about having it practical, especially for smaller operators.
So basically the entire story is a beat-up. There is no flouting of the law. The new requirement will not take force for at least 12 – 15 months and if there are any changes they are likely to be small technical ones in terms of this clause.
Related posts:
- Alcohol advertising
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- The conflicted Lees-Galloway
- Electoral Law proposed changes due soon
June 22nd, 2012 at 4:16 pm
Have you been to PNorth? You cant drink enough alcohol to make that experience worthwhile. The closer to the door the better.
Vote:June 22nd, 2012 at 4:30 pm
Far out, it must be a supermarket in a pretty flash area. I can’t imagine the Petone Pak n Save ever putting booze right by the front door – scum would be shoplifting it left, right & centre
And yeah, pathetic Labour. It must be chardonnay. And you wonder why you’re nowhere in the polls?
Vote:June 22nd, 2012 at 4:41 pm
Good grief. The government is regulating the arrangement of things in a store?! This is an example of over-the-top regulation. How much law do you need to study in order to open a store? I hope it gets voted down.
Vote:June 22nd, 2012 at 4:44 pm
Fucking crazy lefty suckholes. What’s wrong with these people, why do they continually feel the need to regulate everyone’s life? Give these wankers a couple of more years and all the piss will be in plain bottles, with 10 fucking inch warnings on each bottle which will be looked in a big cage and you will have to ask some pimply checkout girl to unlock the cage every time you want a beer, just like the cigs. Just because their are some in society that go mad after a couple of drops of piss or some child might, horror of horrors, spy the evil drink so it should all be hidden from view. Why do the socialist always seek to govern to the lowest common denominator?
Vote:June 22nd, 2012 at 4:45 pm
There is a bill in the ballot that proposes all couples can marry regardless of sex, how can internal affairs not issue marraige licences given this law change may happen some time in the future.
Vote:June 22nd, 2012 at 4:54 pm
Umm… So… Iain Lees-Galloway thinks there’s a government conspiracy because one supermarket he visited was possibly in breach of a law that hasn’t been passed yet?
Pathetic. Judith Collins is right to call him silly.
Vote:June 22nd, 2012 at 5:08 pm
It won’t long before the Herald is giving Labour and the Greens free full page advertising space – just so long as they go negative on National.
Vote:June 22nd, 2012 at 5:42 pm
Once upon a time the prohibtionists were all women.
Now they’re Labour,what a bunch of old blouses.
Same goes for the Nats and their prohibitionist anti tobacco Maori Party wowsers. What a crock.
Vote:June 22nd, 2012 at 5:48 pm
Remuera New World has long had booze by the front door, last time I checked it hadn’t brought down the neighbourhood!
Vote:June 22nd, 2012 at 6:03 pm
Apparently The Mill Liquor Save has alchol on display at its front door as well.
Did the Taleban take over New Zealand recently and appoint Labour the Cultural and Moral Police?
Vote:June 22nd, 2012 at 6:31 pm
RRM,
Pak ‘n’ Save and Countdown are on the same street Fergusson Street and are only seperated by Fitzherbet Avenue or about 5 mins walk.
Nowhere in Palmy is flash.
Vote:June 22nd, 2012 at 6:50 pm
If Mr Lees-Galloway is so concerned about this, why does not he organise a protest outside Countdown as he did outside the Coachman Hotel to protest Leonie Hetepa’s National Party candidacy in 2011. Probably he could get a grant from union coffers to organise the Coachman rent-a-crowd, but the barrel is empty for any Countdown protest.
Vote:June 22nd, 2012 at 7:06 pm
Fucks were given by how many?
Vote:June 22nd, 2012 at 7:11 pm
Someone should inform the honourable member that the supermarket staff are not unionised, which means they will move the entire shelf overnight when required to do so. He is obviously estimating the usual union-negotiated shelf movement project that takes 15 months and costs 20 million.
Vote:June 22nd, 2012 at 7:36 pm
So.. when Labour next get elected into government they will set about prosecuting people for breaching any laws they intend to pass in the future?
Vote:June 22nd, 2012 at 8:06 pm
Very silly action by Countdown. Dont they understand the sensitivity of these issues?
Vote:June 22nd, 2012 at 10:34 pm
God labour really are a sad pack of failures
Vote:June 22nd, 2012 at 10:35 pm
Fucking conservative arseholes….just fuck off out of our lives douchetards…
Vote:June 23rd, 2012 at 12:06 pm
The Countdown in Three Kings has liquor by the front door. I’ve always thought that it’s a fairly cynical layout when you consider the demographics of the surrounding area.
But the Government shouldn’t be regulating store layouts. The best way to regulate alcohol is through raising taxes and enforcing the existing licensing regs.
Vote:June 23rd, 2012 at 12:30 pm
So in future under Labour you will be prosecuted for failing to comply with whatever Labour imagine to be the law . Is that what is meant by the dictatorship of the proletariat?
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