Sale of Liquor (Objections to Applications) Amendment Bill (Submission)
The New Zealand Drug Foundation – Te Tūāpapa Tarukino o Aotearoa welcomes the opportunity to comment on the Sale of Liquor (Objections to Applications) Amendment Bill.
Our comments on this bill are influenced by our guiding principles, including a commitment to evidence-based best practice and policy, and harm minimisation. The Drug Foundation has had a very long interest in ways that the Sale of Liquor Act could be strengthened to reduce alcohol-related harm, and to create a healthier drinking culture in New Zealand; a culture of moderation and support for people who choose to not drink alcohol.
General comments
The Drug Foundation is grateful the opportunity to comment on the Sale of Liquor (Objections to Applications) Amendment Bill (hereafter, the “Hawkins bill”), but notes that this Bill now appears to have been superseded, to a large extent, by the Government’s recently announced Sale and Supply of Liquor and Liquor Enforcement Bill (hereafter, the “Government bill”).
We strongly encourage all members of Parliament to support the Government bill at its First and Second Readings, and look forward to the opportunity to submit our views on that bill.
Any amendment to the Act must be seen in the context of a more comprehensive approach to alcohol related harm and the management of alcohol in New Zealand. We therefore strongly welcome the Law Commission review as an opportunity to address broader alcohol issues, many of which fall outside the parameters of the Act.
The Drug Foundation supports the intent of the Hawkins bill to improve the effectiveness of the Sale of Liquor Act (hereafter, the “Act”), but we hold concerns at the ad hoc approach to this. For example, this bill seeks to address the issue of further proliferation of licensed premises, but it does not address problems arising from existing levels of licensed premises.
Factors contributing to alcohol harms are considerably complex. While this bill identifies social factors as important, these only form a part of the context of the problems we’re all striving to address. There are other, quite direct factors which impact on these issues, especially relating to drunkenness, violence and disorder, such as the rapidly escalating strength of alcohol products targeting young people. Independent Liquor’s ready-to-drink product Cody, for example, has increased in alcohol strength from five, to eight and now twelve percent alcohol by volume.
We all accept there is no silver bullet to solve New Zealand’s “drinking problem”. Because there are a cocktail of factors contributing to the problem, we will need a comprehensive package of solutions, only some of which will come from amendments to the Act.
We note that both the Government bill and the Law Commission review seek to address some of these complex factors. As an interim measure, until such time the Government bill is introduced, we recommend a small number of changes to strengthen the Hawkins bill, which address those pressing issues on which there is already a level of consensus.
Specific points on the Hawkins bill
Social Impact Report
We have misgivings about the process by which Social Impact Reports will be prepared. The fact they will be prepared, as a matter of course, by the applicant means that well-resourced licensees will simply contract consultants to prepare applications, and we will soon see stock/standardised template reports which meet the requirements of the bill, but don’t truly analyse or reflect social impacts, thus absolving potential licensees of responsibility for those broader social impacts.
There is a further issue where case law has already established the difficulty of attributing even well evidenced collective or cumulative public health/community harm to an individual premise or applicant.
Furthermore, while such reports provide additional criteria for the Liquor Licensing Authority to consider, the bill does not strengthen the Authority’s ability to decline an application on the basis of these criteria.
There is, nonetheless, a strong argument for identifying possible social impacts of proposed premises, which is in keeping with the growing use of health impact assessment methodology. For this reason, we recommend that social impact reporting should be called for by any of the reporting agencies or by the Licensing Authority itself, and with a requirement that the report addresses any specific issues identified by that agency. The Liquor Licensing Authority’s ability to decline on the basis of matters raised in the Social Impact Report should be specified.
Further, any applicant’s undertakings to remedy adverse effects should be binding, i.e. if remedies are not effectively carried out, the licence would not be renewed at the end of the twelve-month probationary period.
Affected party
It is unclear how the proposed definition of affected party substantially differs from that in the current Act. Currently, persons need to establish that they are an affected party in order to establish their credentials as someone with an interest greater than the public generally. It is hard to see how the bill will do anything other than create the need for new precedents and interpretations in order to cover the same legal territory.
Additional amendments
Price advertising of alcoholic products by premises licensed under the Sale of Liquor Act should be prohibited
A major compounding factor to the harms caused by the proliferation and density of liquor outlets is competitive pricing resulting in the availability of cheap, bargain basement booze. While the Act doesn’t consider the price of alcohol – which evidence clearly demonstrates is the key determinant in peoples’ increased and hazardous consumption – price promotion (e.g. happy hours) is considered under section 154(A): Promotion of excessive consumption of alcohol.
Holders of an off-licence not only compete on price with other off-licensees, they also compete with hospitality providers (on-licences). Price competition has reached a point where some bar owners are purchasing liquor from supermarkets because it is cheaper than what the distributor sells for.
This competition has resulted in a shift in where people drink: from on-licences to unregulated, unlicensed environments (private homes and public places). As a result, this pattern of drinking sees people who drink (especially young) consumer heavily in a private unsupervised setting before moving to hospitality venues. This trend has increased the problems of intoxication, disorder and violence in urban areas, and has increased demands on police and hospitality staff. This problem is exacerbated when commercial pressure on hospitality operators requires them to promote cheap prices.
On-licence premises are a regulated environment: the sale to and consumption of alcohol by intoxicated persons is illegal; promotions that encourage excessive consumption are illegal; and underage persons can be prevented from obtaining and consuming alcohol. Effective enforcement by the Police and District Licensing Agency, and health workers, in particular, can ensure to a considerable extent, that these environments are run responsibly and alcohol abuse is minimised. Even alcohol-related offences committed in other environments are, through the Police Alco-link procedures, linked back to the hospitality environment where the offender had been drinking.
With off-licences no such regulatory constraints exist: alcohol bought from an off-licence is not consumed in a regulated environment and there is no ability of the off-licensee to avoid intoxicated or underage persons consuming alcohol. Furthermore, it is improbable under the Act in its present form that an effective case could be made directly linking alcohol abuse back to a sale from the off-licence, even when that sale is price discounted to an extent that, if it had been an on-licence, action would be taken under Section 154(A).
The Drug Foundation considers this situation could be greatly improved if no licensed premises were permitted to advertise the price of their products through any media, mail-drops, flyers, or signage visible outside the premises. Such a measure would fit neatly into the Act as it relates, in all cases, to any licensed premise.
Finally, over the past few years the Drug Foundation has proposed a number of amendments to the Act give greater effect to its purpose. These include:
- Requiring councils to develop alcohol strategies, to especially manage the proliferation, density and location of outlets
- Requiring mandatory proof-of-age identification checks
- Making supply of alcohol to minors illegal expect by parents/guardians, and removing the “private socials gathering” exemption.
We are very pleased to see these matters are included in the Government bill, and we won’t make specific comment about these in regard to this Hawkins bill, except to note that they do represent a number of specific amendments which would strengthen the Act. We therefore recommend the Committee note the provision contained in the Government bill, and that members urge their colleagues to support the Government bill.
