An application for a liquor licence to open a suburban bottle store in Hastings has been withdrawn following widespread opposition,
The application by D Biant Ltd for the proposed Babalas Liquor Store in Gordon Rd, Raureka, was to have been heard by the Hastings District Licensing Committee next Friday, butwas being opposed by the Police, the Medical Officer of Health and the district licensing inspector.
Notification of the application also prompted 107 objections from people and organisations in the area, including Raureka School and a kindergarten.
Licensing inspector John Lovatt in his notice recommending the application go to a hearing echoed concerns about the operation of a liquor store in a suburban residential area of high deprivation, and of the capabilities of first-time liquor store operators.
Paramjit Singh, who has been in business in Hastings for about 13 years and who proposed to make a liquor store out of two vacant shops he owns, said there was no point in proceeding with the application.
He did not accept the argument that drinking and problems in the community would increase because of a liquor store being in the area. "If people are going to drink they are going to go anywhere to get it. We are a wine country ... people go out into the country to drink."
He said the application had "cost me a lot of money" and it would have cost more with little or no prospect of succeeding on the basis on which it was being made.
As a prospective new entrant in the retail liquor industry, having grocery and food retail interests, he had learned "some lessons" and did not rule out getting into the liquor trade in the future.
