Alf would like to ignore a study that draws a link between numbers of liquor outlets in an area and the susceptibility of nearby residents to alcohol problems.
Trouble is, it has armed the police with another pretext to call for a limit on the number of liquor outlets in an area.
Too much of that sort of thing – if applied to a community like Eketahuna – could be seriously damaging to Alf’s lifestyle if not health.
Alf has been alerted to this matter by a report at Stuff.
It tells of a University of Otago study, published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, which found a “clear association” between the number of alcohol outlets and the alcohol-related harm reported by people living within one kilometre of the sites.
A growth in liquor outlets in the past 20 years, coupled with their concentration in poorer areas, “constitutes a threat to public health”, the study said.
Study leader Professor Jennie Connor said the probability of people binge-drinking increased 4 per cent for every off-licence within a kilometre of their home.
Nearly 2000 people surveyed reported how alcohol harmed their work, relationships or health.
Each club within a kilometre radius increased the amount of drinking-related harm by nearly 6 per cent.
Each off-licence increased reported harm by more than 2 per cent.
Alf is tempted to muse that a similar study should be made into the proximity of binge drinkers to dairies owned by Indians. He suspects a similar finding would result.
Then what should we conclude?
But the cops don’t have Alf’s gift for thinking outside the square and a Sergeant Al Lawn is quoted as saying the Otago study confirmed what police had observed for a long time.
“The more licences you have, the more competition and the cheaper the price, the more availability and the more convenience,” he said.
Lawn said it would be “common sense” to limit the number of liquor outlets in the same way the Gambling Act limited gaming machines.
“We just don’t need new liquor outlets,” he said.
“We’ve sat on our hands for so long and allowed the proliferation of licences.
“I think … we need to actually get to grips with the extent of alcohol abuse.
“It’s reasonable to balance the right we have for freedom with limiting the problems [with alcohol] in parts of our society.”
The Stuff report proceeds to point out there are 186 off-licences in Christchurch, 438 on-licences and 95 clubs.
This is considerably more than we have in Eketahuna, and it may be that a few of them ccould and should be closed.
But before we leap to support the police, let’s note that the number of drunk patients at Christchurch Hospital’s emergency department dropped after the earthquake.
A surgical report for the Canterbury District Health Board said there was a “marked reduction in alcohol-related admissions”, including hand and face fractures, after the September 4 earthquake.
Emergency physician Dr Scott Pearson said the drop in drunk patients and associated bad behaviour after the big shake was “really noticeable”.
“We put that down to the central city pretty much being closed so the bars were significantly restricted,” he said.
“It was amazing, because you had Friday, Saturday nights for a couple of weeks when you were not getting that group of patients, so they were quieter.
“You felt like you could just go about and do your work.”
However, the number of alcohol-related cases had “come back with a vengeance” over the past week.
Some people accordingly will be apt to say this corroborates the thrust of the Otago study.
Alf more simply says a bloody good earthquake each weekend would do a power of good in promoting sobriety in the community.
It would give Gerry Brownlee more work to do, too, as Minister in Charge of Earthquake Recovery or whatever it is he is doing.
Without more work to do of this nature the bugger is apt to become starry-eyed about the movie business and we taxpayers finish up being lumbered with outlandish deals to keep the bloody hobbits here.
