Posts by Andre
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I once knew a guy whose father used to be a Red Squad member then a Chief Inspector before becoming a liquor licensing inspector. Back in the 90's if I bumped into him he'd tell me which bars he wanted to close down. Most of them were busy. The busier they were the more trouble would be blamed on them. The idea was that if someone got drunk at a bar and went out and caused a crime then it was the bar's fault. The police kept (and probably still do keep) these stats and supplied them to the council. So if your bar was popular and served a broad social group you were much more likely to be shut down. The police viewpoint on bars is very much about "policing" them. The council's viewpoint shouldn't be - it should be about delivering what ratepayers want. By employing cops as liquor licensing inspectors our viewpoint is being lost. If they want to shut a bar they will. The feedback to the council about what is happening in their "entertainment precincts" is skewed as a result.
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I think that Auckland City has two distinct groups that go partying. There are those that just left work and are going straight out with friends. they will mainly be drunk by 8pm and home by midnight. The second group are those who go out later to attend bands, go dancing or to just avoid the members of the first group.
The council basically wanted those from the first group to go home before midnight and wanted to outlaw all of those from the second group in its entirety. Or make them join the first group.
BITD. De Bretts closed at 10pm for drinks and everyone was kicked out by 11pm. The Brat / The Playground / Berlin etc didn't kick off until midnight and there was an hour or two of wiling away time between pubbing and clubbing which was fairly insane at times. As a result half of those who were out went home at 11pm. It was crap but John Banks probably liked it and is probably keen to wind back the clock. He's worked in hospo since he was a teenager picking up the empties from illegal grog houses and he owned the Cavalier on College Hill so he must have known what a fucktard idea this was. Is he giving Bhatnagar enough rope to hang himself or something? -
Great story Hadyn (please note the spelling)! I thought your first blog makes interesting reading still - the All Blacks miss Carl Hayman more than we acknowledge. What happened to Tialata this year? http://publicaddress.net/default,4479.sm
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@BenWilson That map retaining Freemans Bay and Harbour St in St Mary's Bay as part of Auckland City is just cynical. I imagine rating levels would be very different than what they are now. Maybe it's part of the Victoria Park Underpass project where they shift the Birdcage up the street 30 metres? I wonder if they plan to retain Jacob's Ladder? I'm surprised the PC brigade haven't banned children from these almost vertical steps yet - they're awesomely steep!
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The Maori Party are looking a bit bedraggled this week and may be angry at the Nats for getting the better of them over ETS - so their claims for Maori representation will become more strindent. By supporting Len Brown they are in effect endorsing the opponent of their coalition partner in parliament. How far will this go? I suppose it's just a question of how angry they are...
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Sainsbury's coverage was hilarious and stupid. The kids in the background looked fairly happy that TVNZ were covering their party in an A-List/Norrie Montgomery style almost. The student rep repeated his pre-rehearsed sound-bite a couple of times - he's got a big future in Wellington ahead of him perhaps.
This is a stupid situation that could have been headed off at the pass. This event is organised by Canterbury students and Dunedin has to deal with them - sort of like a drunk and slow-moving cannonball run. If I organised 500 of my friends to do the same I imagine the cops would stop us by Lincoln and tell us to go home or be arrested. Especially having pulled the same stunt the year before with similar results.
@Lucy Stewart has a great point about South Auckland. Can you imagine Close Up broadcasting from outside the Killer Bees HQ last year with a party going on behind him?
Many of the rioters aren't students. They are just kids running amok - which is fine sometimes but this lot were basically police sanctioned. My slightly older brother went to university and I chose to go straight to work (studying wasn't my thing I'm afraid) but that didn't stop me hanging out with the IH, Grafton and O'Rourke students all year when I was 16 and attending almost every function they went to. Orientation week was a highlight. The pub crawl could be fairly disruptive but we didn't destroy property or assault anyone. No laws were broken except the ones that involved getting drunk or stoned. If I had become a trouble-maker I would have been branded a "uni student" by the press at the time.
I wonder whether they'll have another crack at the undie 500 next year. If they do I imagine that it will be a lot more like the real Cannonball Run with the Police actually bothering to stop them instead of pointing them in the right direction to Dunedin... -
It sounds like you need Romy & Michelle - brilliant role models for school reunionising!
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ahhh my mistake...
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They need a (Sir) Walter Nash. I reckon if he was still around he would have told them to naff off wirh the honorific BTW. He was an establishment figure who believed in equality. Almost as if Ted Kennedy had been made president. Americans seem to believe that ensuring people don't die is socialism but also seem to think that they are the most friendly people on the planet. "Hi there. I want to be your friend. You seem to have cut your leg off. Don't ask me to help. Have you got any money?". It all leaves me a bit cold.
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Holy Grail sorry