Last Saturday evening, Lou Wesley, Jack Huata, Boydie Huata and James Raupita called in at their local, the Waikare Hotel in Hawkes Bay.
They had one drink each and left, purchasing 48 beers at the pub's off-licence on the way out.
While inquiries will firm up the details, the men reportedly took the booze around to a friend's place where, it is believed, they consumed the best part of it, before setting out to drive home some time around midnight. They never made it.
The men's bodies, and the comprehensively wrecked remains of their vehicle, were discovered about 7.30am the following morning.
It is thought the "great, happy-go-lucky buggers" - as described by a volunteer firefighter and friend who arrived on the scene with emergency services - had been lying there for six or seven hours. Their ages ranged from 64 to 42.
This tragic incident should give legislators in our Parliament sobering pause for thought as they wrestle with further and final amendments to the Alcohol Reform Bill.
The echo of drinking awareness campaigns past - "It's not the drinking; it's how we're drinking" - resonates, and reminds that while much of the publicity surrounding the sale, purchase and consumption of alcohol concerns itself with binge-drinking youth, this is not the only sector of society at risk from excessive alcohol intake.
It is a point that has long been made by National Addictions Centre head Dr Douglas Sellman, who has estimated there are up to 700,000 heavy drinkers in New Zealand harming themselves, their families and the wider public.
Last week, Prof Sellman spoke out in support of a Maori Party Supplementary Order Paper which proposes variations to the legislation as it now stands: in this case those proposed measures are the elimination of alcohol advertising and sponsorship, introduction of minimum pricing per unit of alcohol, developing a sinking lid for off-licences and establishing more restrictive default trading hours.
Such moves are supported by some others in Parliament, including Labour's Lianne Dalziel who, this week, spoke up on the notion of minimum pricing as a step towards restricting "access to cheap alcohol ... reinforced by clever marketing and a drink-driving limit that lets people drive when they are intoxicated".
Other moves getting a hearing of late include health warnings and the split purchase age proposal whereby 18-year-olds would be legally entitled to drink in a pub or bar, but not to purchase alcohol from an off-licence until they were 20.
For its part, the Government is considering such proposals. Justice Minister Judith Collins revealed at the weekend her ministry is researching minimum prices for alcohol, and health warnings on bottles and cans.
But she and her colleagues are, rightly, less enamoured of moves further to restrict alcohol advertising and sponsorship.
The parallel has been drawn with tobacco, but it is useful only to an extent.
As Ms Collins points out the "vast majority" of New Zealanders drink responsibly; and the purpose of the legislation was not to try to "stop all alcohol sales in this country".
Last August, when the Justice and Electoral Select Committee reported back on the public submissions received on the Bill, it gave the green light to 130 changes to be included in it.
These included strengthening the existing offence of promotion of excessive consumption of alcohol; and making it an offence to promote alcohol in a way that has special appeal to people under the purchase age.
The Bill, as it was then, also included a provision for improving public education and treatment services for people with dependency issues - initiatives which, if implemented, would brook little argument.
As is so often the case, legislating for the sale and consumption of alcohol involves something of a trade-off between personal freedoms, business prerogatives and social harm.
Most people do not want to see excessive profits being made off the back of people - including the young - vulnerable to the enticements of booze; but, equally, the responsible consumption of alcohol should not be made either prohibitively expensive, nor overly inconvenient.
This is the fine line the legislators in Parliament must tread.
