The hospitality industry is rejecting the notion a vicious assault at Auckland's Viaduct over the weekend occurred because bar tenders did not dish out drinks responsibly.
An 18-year-old Glen Innes man is in hospital with head injuries after he was assaulted shortly after 4am on Sunday.
The unprovoked attack occurred outside a central Auckland bar where the young man was knocked out before being further assaulted while he was unconscious.
Police and ambulance services were called to the scene immediately and a 19-year-old man from Mangere East was arrested.
He will face charges of injuring with intent to injure at the Auckland District Court today.
Auckland City Detective Tony Turner said it was understood both parties had been drinking prior to the altercation.
Police would be "looking closely" at where people involved in these types of incidents were drinking beforehand and whether managers were managing patrons drinking responsibly, he said.
But Hospitality New Zealand president Adam Cunningham said that attitude was "disappointing".
"There's no link whatsoever between an on-premise being irresponsible and some poor kid getting bashed, but that's the position the police would like everyone to believe," he said.
"It's disappointing when the police use rhetoric like this to try and hook it up to be somebody else's fault."
The closing of central Auckland bars at 4am meant there was now an influx of people on the street at the same time, Mr Cunningham said.
The move was something the police supported "very strongly" but Hospitality NZ warned against for years, he said.
Legal ramifications for serving intoxicated people meant bar staff could be fined, lose their jobs and would struggle to pick up other work in the industry, he said.
"Our industry's long past being like that. There's still a couple of cowboys out there, but generally speaking, if you look at the operators in central Auckland ... they've got millions of dollars attached to running their businesses so they're not going to do anything stupid.
"The challenge the industry faces is that bar staff are the only people responsible - the customers aren't."
Mr Turner said police were urging all bar patrons to "ease up" on the drink in light of the unprovoked attack.
"From what we've seen and been told, things could have been much more serious for all parties concerned as the 18 year-old [victim] was left on the ground bleeding from his head after the apparent random attack," he said.