Many of the city's residents are outraged by the drunken antics of some students - and rightly in many cases. Over the past decade, the Dunedin City Council has been relatively proactive on such issues and has worked towards some solutions.
Its latest proposal to extend the central city liquor ban into the student residential area sounds a great idea on the face of it. This will surely teach those students a lesson, and help put an end to binge-drinking fuelled riots and sofa fires showcasing Dunedin in the media.
"And about damn time", many residents will be saying.
I share their concerns, especially about alcohol-related harm. If extending the liquor ban would make a significant difference to binge drinking and Undie 500-type incidents, then it might well be worth the trade-off of well-behaved residents losing the privilege to drink in public.
But in the real world, the banning of public drinking in the area will achieve little to nothing.
Think about it.
Most of the alcohol-related issues, like sofa burning and general disorder, are caused by people drinking at flats or pubs beforehand.
Not a lot of alcohol is actually consumed on the street. Banning this will make little to no difference.
And research supports this - there is no evidence liquor bans have any impact on alcohol consumption.
There is no consistent evidence liquor bans reduce assaults. No consistent evidence they reduce ambulance call-outs. No consistent evidence they reduce hospitalisations. And no consistent evidence they reduce property destruction.
So it won't really stop the alcohol-related harm in the area, but won't it bring to an end to Undie 500-type incidents?
No.
History shows us a liquor ban makes no difference whatsoever to such events. Recall the last Undie 500 - the usual sadly predictable shambles. There was a liquor ban in place. It didn't make a blind bit of difference.
Likewise, nor will a liquor ban help end the Hyde St party. The event will simply shift into flats, further from monitoring or supervision. It is better to professionally manage and control this event to minimise harm.
Whatever approach is taken, a liquor ban is not necessary to achieve it.
Besides, if desired, existing rules allow for one to be applied.
So let's address the real factors causing alcohol problems in North Dunedin.
Over the past decade, the easy availability of take-away alcohol, the lowering of the off-licence purchase age, and the disproportionate increase in price of alcohol in pubs are vastly more responsible. The ability to drink in public is a very minimal, if at all, factor.
These primary factors look to be addressed in the near future with the tightening up of off-licence sales and an increase in purchase age.
And let's not overlook the blatant discrimination of this proposal.
Imagine that the North Dunedin area was a predominantly Maori neighbourhood. If the same extension was proposed, there would be outcries of racism. Discriminating against students is no different.
Some of you may be thinking this proposal is not discrimination because the area has a higher rate of alcohol-related issues.
While the area certainly has issues, that is not the fault of the area's well-behaved residents - why should they lose privileges because of a badly behaved minority?
By treating students as if they are all badly behaved, the city is discriminating against the well-behaved ones. That's the definition of discrimination. This proposal will see these blameless people's privileges removed based on that discrimination.
Thought police?
What a liquor ban does achieve is to give police a tool to make dealing with potential problem behaviour easier, by prejudging people's future behaviour.
I support preventive policing but hold the phone. This is allowing police to prejudge who will and won't commit antisocial behaviour before anything antisocial has actually happened. That is more than simply unfair - it is Orwellian.
Sure, if people are actually committing antisocial behaviour, deal with them. We already have laws against public fires, violence, breaking bottles, urinating in public and the like. We already have ways to enforce and punish such behaviours.
However, if people are simply drinking and not committing antisocial behaviour, it shouldn't be the business of the police. One certainly shouldn't be able to be arrested because the police feel you might later become a problem.
Burning a couch on the street is a crime. Making drinkers into criminals because it can be difficult to catch couch burners isn't justified.
No-one has explained how making criminals of people enjoying an otherwise legal beverage but doing nothing antisocial is justified.
While it's comforting to think our council is addressing this issue with stiff measures, these will in reality achieve little to nothing, and will simply punish otherwise wellbehaved residents. I, for one, can't justify taking blameless people's privileges away for what amounts to pointless window dressing.
Whatever people in Dunedin think of student behaviour, it is only a tiny minority of the 26,000 students in this city causing the sleepless nights. A liquor ban won't stop these students misbehaving. Instead of tarring all students - the majority responsible and well behaved - with the same ban, let's work on realistic solutions.
- Mark Baxter is a Dunedin-born resident who has been involved with student rights and advocacy for more than a decade.
