Richard McGrath: Napier City Councillor on the rejected proposal to close bars an hour earlier

Napier residents will still be able to dance the night away. 

The City Council has rejected a proposal that would force bars to close an hour earlier – at 2am instead of 3. 

It was part of the city’s draft Local Alcohol Policy. 

Councillor Richard McGrath told Heather du Plessis-Allan that though they had evidence that connected alcohol and trouble, there didn’t seem to be a correlation between that and age. 

He says that in the same time period, there was roughly an equivalent amount of harm in a suburb with two alcohol licenses as there was in the suburb with the nightclub – an area that has up to 30 licenses.  

McGrath says that in his view, there’s no evidence its the clubs and pubs causing the problems as opposed to off-licenses and house parties.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Napier City Council has rejected a proposal to force bars
to close an hour earlier. They were going to close
all the bars and at two am, but they've decided
now they're allowed to stay open until three am. At
a meeting the week this week, the council decided that
was what they were going to stick with. Richard McGrath
is a naper City councilor and with us.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Now, hey, Richard, there's they're going.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
I'm very well, thank you. Why did you go for
three am?

Speaker 2 (00:21):
It's the status quo that we that we currently have
and there was nothing really presented to me and I
guess the other counselors to to change it.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
What about what about kids getting too boozed and causing trouble?

Speaker 2 (00:37):
Well, the evident, we certainly had evidence put in front
of us from police and health, but none of it
was to do with age, so it's hard to tell
if it was those young people causing the problem or not.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
Oh what did the health and the police say?

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Well, it was they presented stats on times and days
in harm and incidents. But the stats showed that in
one one of our areas that I think has two
licenses or alcohol licenses. There was almost as much harm
between ten and four in the morning as there was
an our Harari suburb where our one nightclub is that

(01:14):
has up just up to thirty licenses I believe in
the area. So there was no evidence. Was it the
clubs or the pubs causing the problem or the off
licenses or the home parties or that sort of thing
in my view.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
So which is the pub? There's just this one pub
that's open to all three which is that?

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Yeah, it's called Rocksoff. That's our one nightclub that we've
got a nature that currently opens till three and they
do a great job.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
So at three am is a lot of dancing going on.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
I assume. So I've asked my kids and that's what
they tell me happens there.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
They so they go dancing.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
No they don't, I'm sure, but I could be proven wrong.
They're both boys energetic, but not that energy.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
So I saw you quoted as saying it's better for
the kids, but essentially better for the kids to be
in pubs than to be sitting at home playing PlayStation.
Is that what you mean?

Speaker 2 (02:05):
Oh very much. So you've got to learn about life
and there's more to it. Than looking at a screen
in front of you. You've got to get out and
talk to people, meet people face to face, do that
sort of thing. And now if you've got a choice
of having your kid doing it in a suburb and
an uncontrolled party, or in a place I think the
owner city had one hundred and something cameras around the

(02:26):
different bars. He's got their force security staff, a sign
and patron. I can't remember what it was called, but
you have to sign in so they know who you are.
And if you've caused trouble in the past, all very controlled?

Speaker 1 (02:40):
Are you like me, Richard? I would much Look, you know,
I don't want I don't want my kids to go
out and get absolutely off their heads and hurt themselves.
But I feel like we're getting so worried about this
stuff now that we're denying kids the ability to have
the experiences that we had, and we're almost weirdly like
pushing them into their bedrooms to sit on sit on
the internet all night. And I don't want that.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
Yeah, and at the end of the day, good people
should still be allowed to, you know, live live life. Yeah,
you know what, everyone that's out is causing trouble. I
mean right. I think this place from what he presented
to us one night, from all the people who had
scanned in, there were six hundred people fronted and they're
not all causing trouble, so why should they all be
told to go home? And you know, miss the world.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
I agree with you, Richard, thanks very much. I wish
that the count we had more of you on on
every single council in this country, Richard mcgran napi a
city councilor if every council had in fact, you know what,
I wonder how busy Richard is, because maybe we can
ask him if he could just join the coppers, the
alcohol team at the Coppers, because then they would stop
wasting there trying to shut down, trying to shut down
all the bars.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
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Speaker 1 (03:46):
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