It's poor form, I know, to hitch a ride on a bandwagon just as it is disappearing over the horizon, but the sight of that upturned vehicle decorated in Speight's colours in the student sector and the accompanying report on the news pages of this newspaper last week, has proven irresistible.
Because amid all the publicity, all the talk, all the discussion about social responsibility from the various parties involved in the bacchanalian festivities attendant upon the arrival of hordes of wide-eyed new "scarfies" into town, it is somewhat jaw-dropping that one of the big breweries still believes it is acceptable to dispense free booze in Dunedin North.
Well, strictly speaking - according to the law - there's nothing wrong with it.
But you do have to wonder what planet the big cheeses at Lion Nathan live on; and what part of the phrase "social responsibility" they do not understand. In this it appears that I am at one with Dunedin North landlord Jim Casey.
Mr Casey has been a little riled of late over the antics of Speight's, and you really can't blame him.
With his brother Alan, he is co-director of Signal Hill Flats which owns 13 flats in Castle St.
The Caseys have, they say, spent considerable time and effort improving and restoring their flats.
So it does not sit well with them when a brewer turns up and uses a commercial stapler to pin notices of a beer promotion to the front doors of those dwellings.
If someone turned up and did that to my front door, I'd be livid as well.
The promotion announced that occupants could be rewarded "with a tray and maybe even a year's worth of Speight's" and was at least partly based on a beer-themed decoration of the flats.
Speight's marketing manager Sean O'Donnell said the promotion had been carried out last year "without any incidents", and that alcohol to be given away was limited to one six-pack per person.
"At Speight's we are very proud of Dunedin and take great care to be a good member of the community.
As producers and distributors of alcoholic beverages we take our legal and social obligations very seriously."
Call me a wowser, but distributing free booze a couple of days after the alcohol-related chaos of the now infamous toga parade? Isn't it about time Speight's woke up and smelled the chunder on George Street? Mr Casey also reckoned the timing was "insensitive".
Quite apart from the thoughtless damage to his property of the beer promotion, he probably has an inkling that too many more of these "fun and engaging" (Speight's' description) promotions - and associated coverage of the mayhem that can result on the national news - and, guess what? Parents are going to stop sending their kids to Otago.
As is always said on these occasions - and I agree entirely - ultimate responsibility rests with the students themselves.
And it is a necessary and invaluable life-lesson that their actions, inebriated or not, will have consequences. That's a fact.
But here are one or two other reality checks.
•The university is Dunedin's primary industry.
• The health of the city's economy is directly proportional to that of the university.
• Should the university decline, so will the city and the province.
• Several thousand adventure-hungry, hormonally-enriched 17 to 19-year-olds away from home for the first time, make a volatile mix. Add unlimited alcohol and watch it explode.
• Student binge-boozing and the associated unseemly behaviour is a multi-faceted community and social issue.
• If all sides, including the breweries, do not seriously grapple with it, the golden goose will end up well and truly roasted.
Last Saturday night after a latish movie, we emerged to streets full of swaying youths and scantily dressed young women - some equally unsteady on their heels, others alone in car parks or in alleys.
Noting their apparent vulnerability, I was reminded of a recent comment by local blogger Lisa Scott, in which she concluded no daughter of hers would ever attend the University of Otago.
It was the shocking, and sinister, boasting of two blokes in their thirties that did it: they always took two weeks off work during O-week, they said, because of all the "easy" sex available. (OK, she used more colourful language than that, but you get the picture.)
When all those North Island parents wake up to that particular scenario, they just might start looking round for a dry university for their daughters.
Or at least one where the breweries do not roam the streets looking for students to whom they might dish out free beer.
•Simon Cunliffe is assistant editor at the Otago Daily Times.
