The hold that alcohol has on us is alarming. If it were being invented today, I doubt it would be legalised.
Certainly, you wouldn’t expect it to be cheap as chips, available to order 24 hours a day from any mobile device and allowed free rein for advertising, yet that is the heavy-drinking or "alcogenic" environment we live in.
Maintaining our alcogenic environment is of great interest to a very powerful alcohol lobby, who represent and are backed by global alcohol interests. It serves their bottom line well.
They will no doubt be patting themselves on the back with the return-on-investment made evident recently with the news of the potential loosening of our alcohol laws.
Others have covered how these proposed changes seem to be a neat delivery of the alcohol industry’s wish-list for legislative changes.
However, there are several potentially harmful elements and missed opportunities in these proposed changes that deserve more analysis.
Firstly, the proposed change to roll back the ability for anyone to object to a liquor licence.
This is a waste of time. The problem of people objecting from overseas — or even from outside the local area — is virtually non-existent.
I investigated this myself, with the dubious pleasure of looking through every one of the 582 objections that had been made to licences in New Zealand’s largest city since the change to allow anyone to object was made.
Of these, only two were outside the local area. One was in support of the licence application. The other was in opposition, but the level of detail provided indicated intimate knowledge of the local area: we thought it was fair enough they should have their say.
Unfortunately, what this roll-back will add back in is the considerable administrative burden on council staff to check that every objection is from the local area. This is an extremely expensive exercise. It can take months.
I see no good reason why we should reintroduce this enormous administrative burden back on council staff.
Secondly, letting hairdressers and barbers serve alcohol without a licence.
Is our drinking culture really such that we can’t even get a haircut without a drink?
Hair salons will, naturally, want to provide a range of alcohol options for their clients so we will end up with unlicenced bars inside barbers. It is supposed to be a small amount of alcohol served — but are you really going to measure that when you pour a glass? And let’s be real, who is ever going to enforce it?
Finally, what about people who are bravely living in recovery? We know seeing alcohol displays can be a trigger. Soon they may need to be worried about exposure while getting a haircut.
But it’s not all doom and gloom. The proposed changes include ID and intoxication checks on alcohol deliveries, an area of the legislation that is woefully out of date.
I published research last year showing that three out of four alcohol orders are delivered without an ID check, half of these being left unattended at the doorstep. The trouble is, the proposed changes for online delivery only purport to apply these new rules to rapid delivery companies.
However, in my study I was surprised to find that the rapid delivery companies were far more likely to check ID than anyone else. Indeed, 58% of rapid delivery orders checked ID, compared with only 7% of orders for everyone else (including the supermarkets).
In other words, 93% of "normal" alcohol delivery companies did not check ID. UberEats and DeliverEasy were the only companies to check ID every time we ordered from them. So, if we are serious about meaningfully changing this, the proposed rules must apply to everyone.
Lastly, the proposed change which has appeared to cause some confusion is around zero-alcohol products.
The announcement stated licensed premises would be "required to offer a wider range of zero- and/or low-alcohol beverages", the minister pointing to this change as one of the only ones that specifically looks to reduce alcohol harm. I take no issue with this proposed change; it is common sense.
Let’s take a look at what it means. Essentially, section 52 in our alcohol laws says that restaurants and bars must have low-alcohol products available for purchase.
However, it’s zero-alcohol products that have become popular. Restaurants buy both, but only sell the zero-alcohol stuff — the low-alcohol drinks get dusty on the shelf and ultimately thrown away.
The proposed changes mean that section 52 could be fulfilled with zero-alcohol products as well as low-alcohol products. Restaurants could stop ordering the low-alcohol products and still be compliant using their stock of zero-alcohol products. As I say, this change makes good sense.
However, it has been dressed up as a measure to reduce alcohol harm, which it is not. Its primary purpose is to save restaurants and bars money. This is why it featured on their lobbying wish-list to begin with.
Unfortunately, what would actually have reduced alcohol harm is the one change that was removed —a roll-back of off-licence trading hours to 9am-9pm.
Because heavier drinkers buy later at night, it’s an extremely effective way to reduce the availability of alcohol in a way that doesn’t affect the majority. The later start time is also great so that our kids don’t walk to school past bottle shops that have been open since 7am.
Overall, what we know already is that the changes appear to loosen the laws for a drug so harmful we probably wouldn’t allow it if it were introduced today.
• Sarah Sneyd is a senior health promotion adviser at Alcohol Healthwatch.
