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Eric Crampton:

I did a bit of consulting work for the Hospitality Association last year around bar closing times and attended some of the hearings in Nelson about the Tasman closing hours. A lot of publicans there made the case that while they very rarely used the long hours they were allowed, it was really valuable to them. Why? Because when an important sporting match is on half-way around the world, they want to be able to air it for their patrons.

There is provision in local alcohol policies for seeking special licences for special events. But, the cops there, if I recall correctly, in their evidence were pretty clear that they did not consider airing a rugby game to be a special event. There'd have to be more to it than that. And, on the publicans' side, the impression was that the police were ridiculously heavy handed around granting permits and enforcing them. Further, the local licensing officer admitted that he'd never had any problems with the bars' existing closing times.

And so Parliament has had to legislate around the cops. We now have national legislation in the works specifying, at a national level, when local alcohol policies' bar closing times are suspended for major sporting events. National wants it only to be for All Blacks' events; Labour wants it to be for all sporting events.

But none of it would be necessary if the police and medical officers of health were less obstreperous about bar licencing. From the chats I've since had with publicans, and from the news stories about police imposing conditions on new off-licences, the cops and medical officers of health are using their power to object to licences to enact, through regulation, the stuff they couldn't achieve when they lobbied to have it included in local alcohol policies or national level legislation: things like minimum alcohol pricing and restrictive hours.

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