Liquor sales to teens attacked

Two youth groups yesterday called for a ban on the sale of alcohol to teenagers.

The Hamilton and Whakatane youth councils told a parliamentary hearing in Auckland that liquor outlets should not be allowed to sell alcohol to anyone under 20.

But the Hamilton group hedged its bets, suggesting the age at which people could buy alcohol should stay at 18. That would make it legal for people aged 18 and 19 to buy alcohol, but illegal for publicans to sell it to them.

The group's president, Waikato University student Dileepa Fonseka, 20, said lowering the legal age for sale to 18 seven years ago had encouraged alcohol use among younger teenagers.

"Drinking has become more of a pattern in some of the 15-year-olds and others under 18," he said.

"There is nothing necessarily wrong with 18-year-olds wanting to drink alcohol. That is not actually the problem. It's the fact that 15 and 16-year-olds and even those under 15 have more access to alcohol, particularly with regard to schools.

"Raising the age to 20 means alcohol is less available to high school students.

"When you lower it to 18, that brings alcohol within the peer networks of people at high school. It's easier for 15-year-olds to socialise with 18-year-olds than 20-year-olds."

The Whakatane group said operations in the past 18 months found five out of 10 outlets in Whakatane, seven out of 10 in Kawerau and nine out of 10 in Opotiki sold liquor to people under the age of 18.

"During the whole three operations, members of the council, aged from 15 to 17, were able to purchase alcohol," the group said. "These statistics for us are horrifying."

However, the Auckland-based Youth Law Centre said 60 per cent of members of the New Zealand Youth Parliament in 2004 supported keeping the legal age for buying alcohol at 18.

The Auckland City Youth Council presented a split submission: "The majority of youth are against the raising of the age. "However, a substantial minority of our youth are in favour of the bill being passed.

"The introduction of such an age of purchase would severely hamper students' social life on campus at university.

"However, it was also pointed out that the increase of the legal purchasing age would to some extent take the culture of alcohol and binge drinking out of our schools and thus reduce the risk to our younger teenagers."

All four groups supported other measures in the bill to move alcohol advertising on television back from 8.30pm to 10pm. Nicole Gray, of the Hamilton Youth Council, suggested restrictions on alcohol advertising in magazines and on billboards, and through sponsorship.

"Alcohol sponsorship is even more influential in the eyes of youth. In the majority of them [magazines, billboards] a sports star or famous person is endorsing alcohol products."