Proposed Liquor Licensing Policy - Review of Submissions 18th August 2010

This was an extra-ordinary Council meeting, orginally planned for the 28th of July at 1pm.  This meeting was postponed as the councillors felt that more consideration was needed before a decision could be made.  Also the recommendations put to council be the staff, none of the Councillors could agree on.

At 9am on the 18th of August Council was resumed by the Mayor, with myself doing the blessings on the meeting.  Each recommendation was covered item by item with Councillor voting on each.  Due to sickness Cr. McLachlan was not present along with Cr. Goodhew.  Cr. Syers arrived alter during the meeting.

There was a slight change around as item 3 which dealt with opening and closing hours was brought before item 2 which covered the agreed amendments which were effected by item 3.

Item 3 had some changes done to it...

the the hours for On licensed premises in clause 12.1.1 and 12.1.2 be adopted as follows:

"12.1.1 For On Licensed premises Situated Adjacent to Residential Areas

Sunday - Thursday                             8 am - 11 pm

Friday - Saturday                              8 am - 1 am the following day

12.1.2 For On Licensed Premises Isolated from Residential Areas

Monday - Sunday                               8 am - 1 am the following day

An additional provision was also added, to bring some of the coastal and rural pubs into line with the CBD areas, as none of the Councillors want people drinking at the establishments then drivign into town to drink more because they were open.  These changes included the businesses wanting On licenses need to produce a host responsibility plan, a Noise plan, and  management plan, and then will be evaluated on a case by case basis to see if they can open later.  personally I wanted one other plan added which was How do you plan to get your customers home plan when they have drunk too much, this was not accepted.

Item 4 talks about On Licensed Premises Situated within teh Whangarei CBD.

"Monday - Sunday                            8am - 3am the following day - with a one way door system in place from 1am.  Provided that where a licensee wishes to operate hours between 8am - 1am then the one way door system will not apply."

Item 5 talks about off licensed premises where they will be operating between 9am until 10pm from Monday to Sunday.

Item 6 Club licensed premises have the hours of:

"Sunday - Thursday                          8am  - 11pm

Friday - Saturday                             8am - 1pm"

Item 13 stated that the following consideration of all submissions and staff report, the policy be considered for adoption with any changes at the Council meeting on the 25 August 2010.

Ok so there are the hours as approved, but do they meet the standard of todays enviornment?  What do you think?

Comments

I don't envy councillors their decision on this - as I said earlier: "damned if you do, damned if you don't".
Just one point: how is the "success" of these proposals to be measured?
For some funny reason the word titanic keeps flashing through my mind along with some image concerned with deck chairs.
But, hey, congratulations to council for actually facing up to the issue.
Wouldn't it have been nice if council had told the public about the meeting - more "secret squirrel" stuff.

Also, Vince, congratulations to you on joining with Warren Slater and myself in trying to publicise what is going on at council. Be careful, you might be the next one to have yourself featured in NZ Truth.

Success can be measued, but only after a review in January 2014.

As noted in item 10 of the agenda, which asks for a review to be done after 40months of usage.  This again is the time that the public can make a change if needed.

Remember, things need to change for them to get better, and alcohol is almost the hardest topic to look at.