Remove sports bar, keep Kaiti safe

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

Opinion

Mokopuna, tamariki, whanau by any name are taonga. In Kaiti our taonga are raised in a community like no other in Gisborne — they are raised next to Kaiti Sports Bar.

Kaiti is the only suburb with a pokie venue, TAB and alcohol in the one premise, located next to sensitive sites such as residential housing, schools, churches, kohanga reo and preschool. There are two off-licences and a Lotto in the same vicinity, the Kaiti Mall.

Eighteen years after the first opposition to these premises, we are again asking decision-makers to look at the challenges faced by our community and to choose to keep Kaiti safe.

While the Gisborne District Licensing Committee (DLC) heard the voice of our community, their decision was appealed and a stay granted to Kaiti Sports Bar — which has allowed them to continue trading, because of the hardship they would have faced otherwise.

With all due respect, the industry has fought to be able to relocate its pokie machines through relocation clauses in Class 4 gambling and board venue policies.

When they choose not to relocate and a decision of a DLC does not go in their favour, then those industries and ultimately businesses have inflicted their own hardship upon themselves.

This is an issue that turns on amenity and good order of the locality under the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act 2012. It is easier by far to relocate a business in order to keep a community safe.

This most assuredly is a gambling den. Two thirds of its business is invested in gambling, being TAB and pokies; the suppressed financial statements confirm it is a gambling den. People confirmed that it is mainly used for gambling.

The Gambling Commission has said it is the use to which the public puts the venue which is important, and not just the purpose for which the owner thinks the business was established.

One of the fundamental purposes of the Gambling Act 2003 is to facilitate community involvement in decisions about the provision of gambling.

Our community has spoken. It has chosen to Keep Kaiti Safe and wants the premises removed.

Lizz Crawford

Kaiwhakahaere, Te Ara Tika

Tairawhiti Gambling Services