Hard News: Save the King's Arms
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Shaping up for a classic case of "overreach with this, then achieve what you actually want with the barely-more-moderate replacement"
To be fair, they've now said they're waiting on the national Law Commission review in March 2010 (local election year). Your suggestion would be more than reasonable if they were offering a substitute right away.
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They scrapped the whole thing, because of objections to the on-licence parts? I'm smelling something that's almost as bad, but not quite, coming in as a "Look, we listened to your objections, and this isn't as draconian as the old one" policy.
Perhaps I'm still too jet-lagged for Banks-related paranoia, but could we go for the "cock-up trumps conspiracy" line until my head recovers? If my memory serves, there's a major review of licensing laws in train and one would have thought it would be sensible for councils to hold on until they know what they're working with, because patchwork ad hockery strikes me as a big part of the problem.
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Welcome back. C&R seemed happy enough with patchwork ad-hoccery when they approved the proposal for public consultation.
"cock-up trumps conspiracy"
Not mututally exclusive in this case. A fair dose of political agenda in the stuffing up, it appears.
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The great thing about the whole proposal was how hilariously out of keeping it was with the entire public ethos of the country's ascendant political right. The sworn opponents of red tape and nanny state introducing a policy proposal that contributed significantly to both. Throw in the fact that Hide's SuperCity is almost certain to involve higher rates (aka taxes) and you've got the trifecta.
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Over the years C&R have seemed more than happy to tell others how to live their lives. Only way they "keep rates down" is by hugely under-investing in essential core maintenance along with the fringe spending that gets all the publicity. And we get floating poo in the harbours.
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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? -
The thing is though there IS a liquor problem in Auckland. But it seems to me that in the "debate" about what to do about it the voice of anyone who actually uses the bars and clubs of Auckland is conspicuously absent. The most prominent players certainly seem to have completely missed the cultural changes wrought by neo-liberalism on social behaviour over the last fifteen years.
Bhatnagar and the rest of his C&R cronies have presided over the (non) planning disaster that led to the crazy situation where shoddy, non-sound proofed apartments are built next to historic and/or existing live music venues and established suburban pubs. That same ideological belief in the sanctity of property rights now turns Bhatnagar and co into enthusiastic supporters of the bully state, because a property owners right to reasonable enjoyment of their property (via a quiet night) in their mindset comes ahead of any other community consideration. Circular reasoning and historical amnesia of this type is unfortunately all too typical of fools like Bhatnagar.
The joyless, aging wowsers of City Vision (Let’s face it, Northey is a drip) best summed up by Brian Rudman in his Herald column today seem to me to be not much better. Their vision of Auckland’s nightlife is the same as ACToid killjoys like Aaron Bhatnagar, only with more trees and a bus lane.
The police don't want a late night culture, for obvious reasons. If the cops had their way, we would go back to a few booze barns with 6pm closing, leaving them plenty of time to eat their donuts back at the station.
When such a toxic alliance of people with their own, anti-entertainment agenda tries to make policy is it any surprise that we end up with a complete dogs breakfast which is then easily dealt with by the spin-meisters of big booze, who have a vested interest in turning us all into 24x7 alcoholics.
Auckland DOES need a new liquor policy - but here is an idea, how about you take a holistic view of the matter - for example, look at things like at least ameliorating the worst of bad planning by offering to subsidise the retro-fitting of double or triple glazing and air conditioning in inner city apartments? How about surveying the attitudes of the actual consumers of late night entertainment rather than just listen to those who have vested interests and assorted lobbyists? Talking to clubbers and the like often reveals surprisingly reasonable and informed views on these matters.
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there's a major review of licensing laws in train and one would have thought it would be sensible for councils to hold on until they know what they're working with
In which case, why didn't they bloody wait until it was completed before first starting down the road of poorly-considered licencing policy amendments? Sorry, Craig, but if they really wanted to see what was going to come out of the review they shouldn't have started spending money on drafting and consulting on new policies until after the review was done and dusted.
What really stinks, to me, is that we're 13 months away from the new council and we still have the current bunch fiddling with existing legislation. Legislation that may not even survive the reorganisation - in the case of ACC's liquor proposal, one certainly hopes it wouldn't have survived. The impression is very much of a bunch of political hacks who, fearing for their futures, are determined to try and ensure that their obnoxious utopia is presented as an option for Megatropolis when all the existing legislation from across the region is eventually rationalised.
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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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look at things like at least ameliorating the worst of bad planning by offering to subsidise the retro-fitting of double or triple glazing and air conditioning in inner city apartments
With an irrevocable, non-negotiable clause in the agreement being that there will be no complaints related to ordinary noise related to living in the inner-city (excepting obnoxious neighbours in the same building, obviously) as the quid pro quo for accepting the subsidy. Make it a condition on tenancy agreements, too.
As for the cops, Tom, they'd rather stop all drinking (as opposed to going back to the "swill") because they spend so much time cleaning up the mess. Same with ER doctors. They see the worst outcomes of drinking on a daily basis, so is it any wonder that they're not enthused about ever-longer opening hours and wider availability of alcohol? Your snark about their position, in the middle of a rant about under- and mis-representation of various perspectives on liquor laws, is rather hypocritical.
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It's bad enough to foist killjoy policy on the nightlife, but it's even worse to deny responsibility for it.
Welcome to the Ninny State (sic) at work. At least "bleeding heart nanny statists" are transparent about their policy.
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Hey well done.
Do tell how you guy achieved this!
CHRISTCHURCH NEEDS YOU!
www.soac.org.nz
Saturdays Press had a Resources Cosent request to subdivide the Arts Centre into six titles to further develop a Cultural 1 Pricinct. YOUR HERITAGE.
Info the Press have refused to publish: The margin for error of the Universities survey by AC Neilsen was 5%.
They published stats of 37% favour & 34% against.
Valid to say 32% favour & 39% agaist.Dr Rod Carr needs to live up to his word and don't go where your not wanted.
Seriously how did you change Banks mind?
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Sicced the liquor barons on him?
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Whilst it is evident that Bhatnagar is a toad who blames his officials when he should be owning his arrogance and stupidity, and whilst it is evident that Banks dropped the policy to save his own skin, it should not be forgotten that Auckland has a massive drink problem. This is not a victory for the people but one for business interests. Doubtless Banks feared the sort of opposition that CityVision's billboard policy attracted: a powerful rich industry shouting loudly and making the Council look stupid. So the discussion we should have been having about public alcohol abuse will not take place, which will make the brewers and the bar-owners very happy indeed.
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If noise and social mayhem are the problem, might I suggest legalizing a mellow alternative? More sitting around watching music videos and playing Trivial Pursuit; less aggravated robbery and yahoo-ing in the street at 3AM?
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As for the cops, Tom, they'd rather stop all drinking (as opposed to going back to the "swill") because they spend so much time cleaning up the mess.
Oh, cry me a fraking river... I'd have a damn sight more sympathy if the laws currently on the books were being enforced -- what the hell do you have to do to actually lose your liquor license in this country? Routinely serving alcohol to grossly and obviously intoxicated persons doesn't seem to cut it.
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As for the cops, Tom, they'd rather stop all drinking (as opposed to going back to the "swill") because they spend so much time cleaning up the mess. Same with ER doctors.
It was more in the "a curse on all their houses" mode.
After reading Simon Grigg's post it got me thinking about something which should stand out like dogs balls to all of us yet is either completed overlooked or ignored. I read some travel writer somewhere saying we don't do cities well in New Zealand, that the "real" New Zealand is out there in the provinces, as if real New Zealanders spend their lives doing bunging jumping hakas onto jetboats that are zooming across the surface of active volcanoes.
Yet Auckland occupies a pivotal and critical role in our nation’s cultural life. Auckland is our only proper city, and therefore is unique in being the only truly urban New Zealand experience in the entire universe. The obvious importance of this is completely missed in the policy making mix. The cultural and economic value of the bright lights of a large urban area in retaining and attracting desirable BYTs and fostering our cultural identity as something other than as a bunch of Ed Hillary mini-me’s is scorned or ignored, and to me this stunts our growth as a cultural nation. I am not saying that public drunkenness at 4am is part of our growth as a national identity, but I do think that the fostering of a vibrant and thriving nightlife in our only city is every bit as important to our sense of identity and national pride as any sterile art gallery or dreary museum, and should be identified as a desirable outcome of any holistic review of liquor and night time entertainment policy.
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what the hell do you have to do to actually lose your liquor license in this country?
Good question. One that I think you'd need to ask the judiciary, not the cops. Revoking liquor licences goes through the courts - due process and other such commie nonsense - rather than being something that a given police officer can decide looks like a good idea on the night.
As for the cops and DUI, I doubt you'll find much support for him within the police. From the article, in fact: The police said all eight policemen convicted of drink-driving since 2005 had lost their jobs.
That he's applying for discharge without conviction doesn't mean the police institution will support him. And even if he's successful it still doesn't mean he won't lose his job. Unlike the officer down the line who drove to a car crash, there's no humanitarian mitigating circumstance that could be argued here. -
I do think that the fostering of a vibrant and thriving nightlife in our only city is every bit as important to our sense of identity and national pride as any sterile art gallery or dreary museum
Absolutely. Our various "mainstream" cultural exports have mostly come out of performances in licensed premises, frequently at hours that, according to the draft policy, shouldn't exist. FotC didn't start off playing to packed houses at "acceptable" hours, they were doing open mic at the Classic and other comedy venues. Our musical exports mostly got started playing in pubs and bars, as is the way in most countries. Kill that, and the opportunities for new talent to thrive and gain exposure diminish greatly.
But, then again, one suspects that Bhatnager's perspective is that anything that doesn't come from a composer who's been dead hundreds of years, or is backed by a major record label, ain't worth hearing.
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Our various "mainstream" cultural exports have mostly come out of performances in licensed premises, frequently at hours that, according to the draft policy, shouldn't exist.
There is also a massive intangible benefit of helping retain your twenty something urbanistas. I must know two dozen or more high achieving, beautiful, and well qualified New Zealanders who live in Sydney or Melbourne or London and whose primary motivation to move was because "Auckland's nightlife sux", and have now built happy BYT lives in those places and will probably not return.
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the "real" New Zealand is out there in the provinces, as if real New Zealanders spend their lives doing bunging jumping hakas onto jetboats that are zooming across the surface of active volcanoes.
Was the jetboat driven by a sheep?
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Maybe we should just start work at 11 am..
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the "real" New Zealand is out there in the provinces, as if real New Zealanders spend their lives doing bunging jumping hakas onto jetboats that are zooming across the surface of active volcanoes.
Ha, you get that here in Bali...the flow of folks who wander up to the hills and return to tell you how they experienced the 'real Bali', which, as stunning as it may be, is mostly alien to the world where most Balinese live and work: the belching, polluted and overcrowded city of Denpasar and it's environs, or the over-commercialised and just as polluted strip of Kuta-Legian-Seminyak.
I must know two dozen or more high achieving, beautiful, and well qualified New Zealanders who live in Sydney or Melbourne or London and whose primary motivation to move was because "Auckland's nightlife sux",
Which, London aside, I think is unfair. Over the recent decades Auckland's entertainment in licensed premises has easily matched that of our Australian cousins, and, I'd argue without much hesitation, often surpassed it in quality, if not quantity.
I'm a little out of touch right now, having spent half this decade out of town, but over the previous ten years I was in Sydney some 36 times and Melbourne not a lot less and always came back to Ak feeling a little smug about what we had to offer which was a more than a bar or two with listenable music coupled with endless RSLs churning out that faceless oz-rawk so beloved in the Great Southern Land.
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3410,
fostering our cultural identity as something other than as a bunch of Ed Hillary mini-me’s
Speaking of whom:
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Matt P:
But, then again, one suspects that Bhatnager's perspective is that anything that doesn't come from a composer who's been dead hundreds of years, or is backed by a major record label, ain't worth hearing.
That rings a bell...
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