Hastings Mayor Lawrence Yule says he is confident Napier and Hastings' liquor licensing regimes have been fairly reviewed despite the discovery of false details on some submissions and one submitter claiming he was bribed with a beer.
In February a joint committee which included Napier City and Hastings District councillors began considering over 300 submissions on an alcohol policy that would apply across the two local authorities' boundaries.
The committee concluded its deliberations early this month, voting to recommend to the two councils that bars within their boundaries be able to stay open until 3am but that supermarkets and bottle stores be made to stop selling alcohol at 9pm.
The majority of written submissions received by the committee, 260, were on a standardised form produced by Hospitality New Zealand, the association representing bar owners and other industry operators.
In a report summarising the submissions, prepared for the committee, council staff raised concerns about those received on the Hospitality NZ form.
"On receiving submission acknowledgement letters a couple of 'submitters' contacted council to say that they did not make a submission on the draft local alcohol policy and did not know what the draft policy was about," the report said.
"One submitter came in to council to say they had never made a submission and when shown the submission they confirmed that it was their signature but they then remembered that they were asked to sign a form which had already been filled out and were then offered a jug for doing so from a Havelock North bar."
Hastings District Council call centre staff followed up with phone calls to numbers listed on submission forms and found other examples of people who said they had not made a submission. They also found a number of those who had supposedly lodged submissions could not be contacted through the details on their forms.
"If there's any validity in the claim that people were signing pre-filled out forms on the basis that they were given a beer or something that's completely inappropriate," Mr Yule said.
The committee was made aware of the situation ahead of their deliberations "and in my view they would have given it the appropriate weight when they made their deliberations".
"The councillors [on the committee] are well experienced in these types of things and the commissioner who lead it would have put, I imagine, due weight on all those issues and balanced all that up."
Mr Yule said a hearings committee, such as the one reviewing alcohol policy, was unlikely to be swayed by a large number of submissions on pre-printed forms but would be more concerned with "the quality of submissions and the points that are being raised".
Hospitality NZ chief executive Bruce Robertson said the organisation's submission forms were aimed at enabling the public to participate in the democratic process by making it easier for them to express their views.
He said the association did not expect people to be offered a drink in return for filling in the forms and such behaviour would be "the exception rather than the rule".
"Where they've been completed properly and signed off, they're a legitimate expression of somebody's views."
The local alcohol policy committee was chaired by independent hearings commissioner Bill Wasley and included Hastings Deputy Mayor Cynthia Bowers, Hastings councillors Mick Lester and Kevin Watkins, Napier councillors Rob Lutter and Faye White, and former Napier councillor John Cocking.
Its decisions are currently being written up and will be considered by the two councils who will decide whether to adopt the proposed policies.