A school fundraiser faces a battle with bureaucracy to continue to sell alcohol after a medical officer objected to the event which has been running for 10 years.
The Napier District Licensing Committee will tomorrow hear an objection to plans to sell liquor at a suburban Hawke's Bay school fundraising event.
The objection has been lodged by the Hawke's Bay District Health Board against an application by Port Ahuriri School to sell liquor over the three-and-a-half hours of its Food and Music Festival in the school grounds on the evening of Friday, November 9.
It will be the fourth year in a row the selling of liquor at the event has been opposed by the board through Medical Officer of Health Dr Rachel Eyre, who argued the consumption of alcohol on school grounds in the presence of children was inappropriate.
The application was not opposed by the police and no concerns have been raised by Napier City Council licensing inspector Darryn Waugh.
Eyre said her view held it was inappropriate to have liquor on school grounds consumed in the presence of minors and this view was shared by Medical Officers of Health throughout the country.
However, many talkback callers on Andrew Dickens Afternoons were critical of the move.
Most callers agreed that New Zealand has a negative attitude to alcohol, and that the one way to our binge drinking culture is to remove the stigma from drinking it.Â
Callers said that they had a bad relationship with alcohol due to it being treated as a taboo subject growing up, while one pointed out that in European countries they don't drink or smoke excessively as they grow up with a more relaxed attitude to alcohol.
- with content from Hawkes Bay Today
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