A south Auckland councillor said new stricter liquor licensing laws, placing a two-year freeze on licensing in certain areas, is a "game changer" and would allow communities to "take a breath".
The Alcohol Regulatory and Licensing Committee (ARLA) approved Auckland Council's Provisional Local Alcohol Policy (PLAP) last week, edging it closer to its implementation.
The new policy includes stricter trading hours, meaning bottle shops and supermarkets across the region can't sell alcohol after 9pm. Currently, it can be sold until 11pm.
It would also see a two-year freeze on new liquor licenses in some priority areas predominantly located in south and West Auckland.
Manurewa-Papakura Ward councillor Angela Dalton told Breakfast that alcohol fuels family violence, retail crime and creates "desperation" in the community.
"Easy access to alcohol is not helping our people who are really in distress from addiction, and that goes across any age, any culture, it's non-discriminatory, but its certainly impacting on our kids.
"We have a very young population in Manurewa."
She said what used to be corner convenience stores in Manurewa were now liquor stores.
"Our children are walking past these everyday on the way to school, it's subliminal messaging, and they might be going home to places that are fuelled by alcohol.
"If we can just calm that, this is going to be better off for everybody."
The policy has been proposed for around 10 years with resident's groups and community action groups calling for change.
Dalton said those groups should be "proud of themselves".
"It is the community that drove this, so the politicians that enabled the Act back in 2012 right through to the councillors and Council supported the community voice that called for it."
Retail NZ said in a statement its members would work constructively with the Council to comply with the policy, but that it questioned if the changes were still relevant given they were proposed in 2014
It also queried the merits of targeting just off-licenses, given on-licenses have impact on consumption.
When asked about Retail NZ's statement, Dalton said the key was off licenses.
"We don't want to stop anybody doing business, we don't want people to not have the benefit of going out and having a drink when they have dinner. It is the off licenses that are harming the community the most."
She said there were 25 off license liquor stores in Manurewa and that the community wanted a "break" from what she described as "proliferation".
The policy was initially approved in 2015 but never came into effect, with Woolworths and Foodstuffs challenging two particular aspects — the 9am to 9pm maximum trading hours for off-licenses and restrictions on new off-licenses in certain parts of the city.
In May 2023, the appeals by supermarkets were dismissed by the court.
"Our people in our communities are spending a lot of their income in those supermarkets, there is a social responsibility to be on board with us and try and reduce harm, not take us to court to try and hold that harm there," Dalton said.
The governing body will make its decision on the policy on August 29 and Dalton said she was confident there would be majority support for the proposal.
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