Posts by Matthew Poole
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Hard News: Drunk Town, in reply to Roger,
We do not need new laws, split age systems or a newer higher drinking age, we just need to actually enforce what we have.
Amen. I've been saying that for as long as this debate has been going on. We were promised strict enforcement when the age was lowered. Have we had strict enforcement? Have we hell. The cops and the councils try, but it has to be extraordinarily demoralising when you see repeat offenders keeping their licences despite egregious breaches of the law and of their duty of care. It certainly does absolutely nothing to any incentive to comply when you know the worst you're likely to face is a suspension of your licence for 24- or 48-hours and you will probably be allowed to implement that over a Sunday/Monday.
Abolish the presumption of a right to sell alcohol. Make the first offence hurt a lot (say a fortnight suspension and $10k fine), and make a second offence terminal to the licence - including forbidding associated persons from being granted a new licence, to stop family members or phoenix companies from simply taking over the licence.
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Hard News: Drunk Town, in reply to Luke Williamson,
It was amazing this weekend to see one of our local bar owners buying up 20 cases of Corona from the supermarket cos it is much cheaper than he can buy it wholesale.
A winery employee of my acquaintance has told his friends not to bother asking him for staff-priced booze, because the staff just go to the supermarkets and buy their employer's label when it's on special. Something is wrong when retail is cheaper than the pricing available to employees of the manufacturer.
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Hard News: Drunk Town, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
I don’t really see the difference between getting drunk in someone’s garage (legal), getting drunk in a hotel room (legal I think) and getting drunk in a private room in a karaoke club (illegal).
The third is subject to conditions of liquor licensing law. The first isn't. The second isn't as long as the alcohol is self-provided or out of the mini bar, but the hotel could get in a lot of trouble if room service restocked your mini bar while you were present and clearly intoxicated.
If you want to sell alcohol, society lays down conditions on your doing so. If you don't like it, you don't have to sell alcohol.As for the long article, the opium den comparison aside it's pretty hard to report on something that's largely confined to karaoke bars without having to discuss the cultural associations that they bring from their originating societies. Ordinary bars and restaurants tend not to have multiple private rooms where patrons get left alone for periods of time with large quantities of booze, for example; that's something that appears to be much more common in karaoke bars. Even without the discussions of outright criminal activity - which, as Russell says, is a concern to MPs of Asian descent - there's still the flouting of liquor licensing rules in a number of ways, including hiding patrons and thus keeping them in a dangerous situation where they are beyond being capable of taking care of themselves.
Do you get outraged by reports that Sky City is used by Asian gangsters for running their criminal enterprises? -
Hard News: Drunk Town, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
umm, I'm not entirely sure which article you read, but there's no "opium den cliche" in the one I linked and only a single reference to ethnicity.
Maybe your outrage at journalists daring to report on something that appears to be a real problem caused you to be blinded to the bigger issues highlighted? -
Hard News: Drunk Town, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
NZ is one of the few that actually takes them at all seriously
Possibly at the blue-shirted coal-face, but very much less so further up the chain. There was an article in Granny two weeks ago about an Auckland karaoke bar that got snapped by the cops, hiding intoxicated-to-the-point-of-insensibility patrons in a back room. Third offence. Did they lose their licence? Nope. There were “mitigating factors”, it seems. What was worse is that they’re apparently one of the better-behaved of that type of establishment.
Fuck the mitigating factors. There is a clear presumption of a right to sell alcohol as a way of making a living, as demonstrated by how incredibly hard licensees have to work in order to have their licences cancelled; or even suspended for any meaningful period of time. Last year saw the first-ever licence cancellation for sale to minors, of a liquor store in Te Awamutu. After a fourth offence!
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Also, I just noticed that there's no sign of any of the Creative Commons rights stuff that got discussed in the Thread of Dooooooom[TM]. Whatever happened to that idea?
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One thing that I know others have asked for is to have the capability to select text in the OP and have a "reply" button that behaves the same way as it does for comments.
Other than that, am liking that the system keeps on improving based on our feedback :) -
Speaker: The Voyage: Dutch Disease –…, in reply to Sam M,
$350k? Seriously? I would have thought it MUCH lower than that. Would be interested in a reference.
It was in a break-down of how various household compositions have been affected by National's tenure. Green Party, I think.
And lower? Really? 1% in the US is about USD750k. Our 1% level is extremely low by OECD standards, proving conclusively that we're a low-wage economy (and that Key's PM salary is about 1/3 above the 1% rate shows how over-paid our politicians are). -
Speaker: The Voyage: Dutch Disease –…, in reply to Sam M,
I reckon there is a good way to identify the 1%. They own all the land.
Maybe, maybe not. Our 1% is actually a very low-level club - income of a mere $350k will gain you entrance. We pay our politicians so much that the PM is a member by dint of his Parliamentary salary alone.
Land ownership in NZ is not anywhere near as concentrated as you seem to believe. Well over 25% of the population hold title to at least one residential property. Doesn't sound much like a way of identifying the 1% to me.
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Speaker: The Voyage: Dutch Disease –…, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
easily avoidable
In the absence of an international implementation, yes. However it's not beyond the realms of possibility that the G20 will agree to develop one, and if it happens at that level of economic activity it's effectively a global tax.