Dont go down to the woods sorry "City" today - you're sure of a big surprise!

[Suezy]

Editorial: Drunken disorder in Chch
Last updated 07:54 02/04/2013

OPINION: Last Saturday night and Sunday morning in Christchurch helped to illuminate some aspects of our modern New Zealand society that we don't think about very seriously, but probably should.

The first is the headlong commercially driven rush into the excessive consumption of chocolate at Easter, which makes a mockery of all the healthy-eating advice being pumped out for the rest of the year for the benefit of our increasingly obese population.

The second was the archaic nature of our opening hours and licensing laws, which led to shops, pubs and taverns closing down to accommodate a religious holiday observed by fewer now than in the past.

The third was much more serious: the way turning off the booze taps at midnight on Saturday produced a 12 o'clock swill that kept police and emergency workers busy with drunken patrons until almost Easter Sunday lunchtime.

Police said that Cantabrians "went hard" with their boozing on Saturday night, pre-loading and then drinking to further excess before the midnight shut-down. The result was a lot of disorder and drink-induced hospital admissions in Christchurch, and a busy night for police South Island-wide. St John Ambulance was busy, while Christchurch Hospital's emergency department was treating people who overflowed into the corridors and then the Bealey Ave after-hours surgery. Police report that they were still processing bail applications for those arrested at noon on Sunday, and that those involved were mainly young people.

Generation Y, as the current cohort of young adults is sometimes named, seems to have a particularly self- destructive relationship with booze sometimes. A Massey University study last year suggested alcohol was involved in a quarter of deaths of people aged under 25 - young lives cut short by road crashes, alcohol poisoning, suicides, homicidal assault, and other acts carried out by the alcohol-impaired.

Parliament had the chance to reform the alcohol law last year and missed the opportunity to go as far as it might. It shied away from raising the minimum purchase age and higher prices for the alcopops favoured by young drinkers. The measures allowing local authorities to better regulate pubs and taverns in their areas will take time to come into full effect. So far, there has been no apparent improvement.

For historical reasons, secular, modern New Zealand now has an uneasy relationship with the regulatory observance of Good Friday, Easter and Christmas - the three whole days where shops and pubs must close (a similar shut- down on Anzac Day morning, conversely seems to be nationally acceptable, both because of the commemoration and the fact it is shorter). The deliberate flouting of the laws prohibiting Easter opening by garden centres and the like is hardly even news any more, and it is hard to see why a wholly positive activity such as gardening, which enhances health and wellbeing and beautifies the family environment, should be curbed on such days when chartered clubs - for example - can keep serving alcohol. All this does is to show the inconsistency of the law and the fact that such measures are now out of touch with how society really works.

Meanwhile, it seems more than ironic that a licensing law which was clearly aimed at preserving the solemnity and serenity of Easter had the opposite effect in Christchurch last weekend, especially in the disorderly early hours of Sunday morning.

Copied from The Press
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/opinion/editorials/8495992/Editorial-Drunken-disorder-in-Chch

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[Rwood]

Not a pretty picture. I hope that the two thugs who attacked Ryder, after their inevitable convictions for inflicting GBH with the intention of doing so, get extremely severe prison sentences. But I'm not all that optimistic.

Edit: It appears a lesser charge is being laid. All the same, it will be interesting to hear from prosecution witnesses.

[Suezy]

Rupert - Unfortunately the wet bus ticket adage is in existence not only here but throughout NZ.
I would make a very good Judge like most people that are in touch with reality.

[Deano]

Suezy, I can't get the tune of "The Teddy Bears Picnic" out of my head now.
Nice one (LOL)

[Rwood]

There seems to be an enormous gulf between the defence lawyer's claims and the reports (at least the early versions) of witnesses. But even if the lawyer's version is correct, I don't think that gives a defendant the right to fell someone with a punch. There's too much acceptance of violence in the macho subculture that seems to characterise the night drinking scene.