Dean - they're actually acting fully within the letter of the law and the Sale of Liquor Act. The questions Campbell Live were asking should not be directed at retailers, who are trading legally, but at the Liquor Licensing Authority. I have to say though the owner of 1-Day came across like a complete muppet. Suggesting "young uns" buy RTDs and not wine is completely irrelevant. Even worse, suggesting Seaview Merlot is a high quality wine is bordering on a crime in itself.
Another breathless TV3 expose of "evil things" in Society and an implicit call for restricting our freedoms and for more registration to protect us from ourselves. These items are inanimate objects, it’s the way people use them, that is the problem. Hand wringing about the numbers of these “evil things” out there again is another dumb argument – kitchen draws around the country are filled with knifes that could be used as effective weapons and we do not ban them nor should we. The only answer is more personal responsibility – The toy gun and the guy who sells it are not the problem – the Idiots using toy guns to hold up stores are the problem and need to be very heavily prosecuted – to suffer for their dumb decisions, but as they are “just kids” we’ll let them off- reinforcing a message that it is somehow not their fault and TV3 appears is supporting that theory. We’re doing this Society wide as we spend 20 million a day on a Social Welfare System that protects people from the outcomes of (mostly) their own dumb decisions, do that for 30 years and you reap the benefit of generations of people who don’t relate their poor decisions to their problems and do not try to moderate their behaviour (or their kids behaviour.)
I watched tonight's episode on buying BB guns and alcohol online and that guy needs a serious wake-up call. To sell BB guns in NZ, even though htey are a toy, requires that not only does he himself hold a firearms dealers licence but that all menbers of his staff who handle them do too. Not to mention that drivel about a disclaimer getting him off the hook for not sighting ID. Have a liquor store try putting up a sign saying "so long as you say you're 18 you don't need ID, but if you lie it's YOU who are in trouble" and see how far it gets them. How do people like that get a liquor licence in the first place ?