When Senior Sergeant Mark Buttar (aka Peanut) from the Johnsonville Community Policing Centre told me he’d pick me up at midnight, because “town doesn’t really pick up till after then” I knew I was going to be in for a big night.
The plan was to take a look at Wellington’s so called “binge drinking culture” and to experience first-hand some of the social issues the Law Commission report, Alcohol in our Lives, addresses. Making an effective contribution to the debate on the alcohol review means getting out there and seeing what is happening in our city.
So in the wee hours of the morning Peanut and I hit the town, under cover, to check out the scene. Courtney Place, Vivian Street, Cuba and Manners Malls, A & E, and finally the police cells were where our adventure would take us.
Throughout the night I saw both the city and people transform. Only copious quantities of alcohol could have numbed the night’s patrons from the cold and wet, and as it quickly became obvious, alcohol was not in short supply.
As we cruised Courtney Place and Vivian Street, I was struck with how young the girls were and how little clothing they wore. While I considered it to be relatively busy, for Peanut the night was quiet.
The boys in blue were everywhere – just as I thought they should be – real community policing. But as the night got busier the police became less visible as they broke up disputes and moved the drunk and disorderly to the cells.
On every block young people were made to empty their bottles, as police enforced the public liquor ban. Police were authoritative but respectful. In my eyes it took courage to move into a circle of guys and tell them to empty their bottles.
As we wandered around I asked the police what the major issues they faced were. They spoke of intoxicated victims walking home alone in the suburbs and being abused by groups of drunken youths. Without a doubt, the biggest difference for police had been the liquor ban in certain public places. There was an overwhelming consensus in the force that the liquor ban should be expanded to the whole city.
The night was young for the girls and guys going from bar to bar. I had no idea that at 4am there would still be queues at the bars. I remember my father asking me when I was a teenager what I was going to do at 1am that I couldn’t do by midnight. My question to these young people is the same – what are you doing at 4am that you can’t do at 12am?
Even on this quiet night I saw girls falling over while crossing the road and guys holding up girls who could barely walk.
Peanut took me to A & E. Emergency staff also said it was a quiet night for them. There were people in the waiting room that had been waiting over an hour to be seen. However, the previous week had been A & E’s biggest week for alcohol related incidents.
Next it was off to visit the cells at 3am. Certainly not a place I would want to hang – yet police had the most incredible attitude. They treated their clients with respect, even though it was 3am and those in the cells were significantly intoxicated.
During a final 4am drive down Courtney Place it was incredible to still see queues at the pubs and clubs. Drunken friends laughed as girls stumbled along footpaths, yet the night was obviously still continuing for many.
For me, after four hours on the beat I was shattered.
My experience that night cemented the fact that we do have a problem with how we drink and in particular the acceptance of being drunk. I saw an emerging problem with young girls applying the mantra that girls can do everything that boys can, to include drinking as much as boys. They can’t. Alcohol was also a common theme with offending.
The alcohol ban in certain parts of the city has helped police manage the problem.
With so many young people unable to look after themselves and drink responsibly we must now look at what the Government can do to reduce demand and control the supply of alcohol.
But most importantly we must ask, how can society, as a whole, change our drinking culture, our attitudes, our acceptance, and our binging?
These are the issues we must discuss. This is the culture we must change.