New Alcohol reform laws heading for the NT

For the past few years you have had to show your drivers licence to buy alcohol in Alice Springs.

None of any measures have worked in Alice...there is always a way around it.

The only way to curb overuse is to ban it totallly...but then business and government revenue would fall off the end of the table

It doesn't affect me as I have slowly but surely cut down on alcohol intake over the past year and have been drinking water or cordials. Apart from some socialising over Easter I haven't had a drop since. I am confident that I will eventually give it up altogether. I feel sorry for those people who are in such a rut that they 'have' to have drink in the evenings. Been there done that.

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah!!!!!!!!!!!!

As Hairy and SIF4X4 can testify it does not work,

I have stood in line at Woolies in Alice whilst the person in front of me went through her multiple ID's with the seller until the scanner would accept one to enable her to buy her grog (the rest of her "family" were waiting outside the door to get the grog)

The US tried to "ban" grog but the bootleggers made a fortune out of that, unfortunately no much it upsets the bleeding hearts who have never lived with the problem blanket laws do not work in this case and it will have to come down to laws which discriminate against some people for their own good

I guess something has to be tried, but I agree it either won’t work or the benefits will be minimal or short lasting. Sadly for the race of people we are referring to here, if you remove grog it will be dope, stop the dope it will be petrol, bring in opal it will be Carva or glue etc etc, or they will just move to major town like has happened in Darwin and there will always be someone willing to sell them something. Very hard to help people who won’t help themselves. I WILL BE VERY HAPPY TO BE PROVED WRONG!

Lyndon

Firstly i don't want this to be based on "politics", i post it in reply to many posts in the past about trying to buy wine and other drinks in the NT and what a pain in the butt it is for us the "traveller" .... also how it is presently affecting the tourism trade in Alice Spring at the moment is getting serious...

The reply's are interesting and also show first hand how it affects practically everyone, even those that cant see any point in having a glass of wine every night it still affect them, like it or not..
All would have to admit the system as it stands is NOT working, banning it completely wont work either, why does Alice springs have BIG problems at the moment, the community's in a 600klm radius have banned it so the chronic alcoholics move location and now camping in Alice simply because they still can buy it .......
Personally i would love it to be banned completely in the whole of the NT, just imagine that, WA, QLD and the southern states would get flooded with all the "bad" people and the NT would be a safe, quite and awesome place to visit, Adelaide are you ready for 10,000 extra drunks because you will get them, they already have "fled" to you to get away from fighting, problem is it was the problem that moved down to you, not away from the community .....

One example system in place at the moment is as follows, i will base it as if i lived in Alice Springs:
I write to the Liquor Board licensing department requesting a Liquor permit to "buy & consume" ..
They first up run my name through there system to see if any convictions are recorded against me relating to Alchole... if any MAJOR (grog running/drink driving ect) ones are found it is simply rejected and placed on record that i applied so in 3 years time i can re-apply and if nothing comes up i will get to the next step..
The approved application is sent to the nearest Police Station of where you residential address is for them to check and give approval, again if any offences are found relating to grog it is treated the same as above, if ok then they also sign it and send it back to you with copys kept...
I get it in the mail, i take it to THAT police station, they cross reference it to there own records and if ok i pay a fee and i get a "passport" style photo taken that is recorded on a data base and also printed onto a plastic card, the full name, address and lic number are also printed on it (exactly the same as a drivers lic) and it has a magnetic strip on the back that is encoded with all the data also ....
I am then Licensed to buy & consume Alcohol at any "designated" premises or location, noting that your home address becomes your "designated" location for a card holder to consume and store it...
I go to a bottle shop and the door, yes the door, has a simple card swipe, it wont open until an approved card is swiped, i go and buy what i want and how much i want and walk to the counter, i produce and "flash" my card so the point of sale can quickly identify it is me and card is valid, no writing down anything, all products are then scanned and before the transaction can be finalised (as per normal) you then have to swipe your "grog" card, quick and simple swipe, first the system checks it is "valid" and then the till records that YOU have purchased what you have against your name, NO writing down nothing anymore, it takes less than one second......
You then drive home and drink it, if you get pulled up with it just flash the card and you keep it, no card and you lose it on the spot, simple as that...
At home your mate comes around, he has a card he can drink with you at home or at ANY place that is "designated", if your mate does NOT have a card you can NOT give him any or can NOT drink it at his place, if you get caught giving someone that is not a card holder then YOU lose yours....
Functions/places that have a licence will be exactly the same as now, you can go to it card or not but can NOT take it away from it, only consume it on the premises....
Designated areas will be the same, except you must have a card and if caught without it will lose all grog on the spot...

Now it will have it's critics as everything does but tell me that wont work ... there are no realistic option left now...

Cheers and keep the replys nice please..

A system that punishes the majority, because a minority cannot cope and authorities will not apply existing laws, will never succeed.

Have lived in Gove for 16 years. Been to every community in Arnhem land , Alice Springs region. Laws are a joke. In Gove if one of the local aboriginies enters onto your property, helps himself to your beerfridge and runs off with your drinks, gets caught....YOU lose you alcohol licence. He gets no charges, has a free drink and nothing! You have to suffer the aftershock of a trespass, theft and the lose your licence. Do-gooders have a lot to answer for. Sick and tired of the minority groups over-riding the majority.

Yes , been to Groote many times. Once again you are made to feel like a criminal. I cannot believe that in this day and age people are still not held accountable for your actions because of your skin colour. Have seen many millions of dollars wasted with no accountability or responsibility. The honest hard working, tax paying white fella is a fool. He is kicked from corner post to corner post by every govt. department. These scumbags who smash shop windows, defecate in streets, bash their wives, rob the hotels and pay no taxes are holding the rest of us to ransom. Black , brown, yellow or white, I dont care! If you are living and being supported ny a community then you must live by community laws.

The diggers of old would turn in their graves to see what a namby-pamby country of politically correct idiots we have turned into. Sorry for the rant but I am so frustrated at the lack of reponsibility people take.
cheers

I wonder if there is anything in this ill conceived law to prevent the purchase and transport of home brew kits. These are not strictly speaking alcohol until after the brewing process is complete. Much like a home still, yes I think it may be illegal to knock up your own spirits but fruit, sugar and water by themselves are not illegal AFAIK.
Anyhow after many and varied tests my GP tells me my stomach problems may just be partly attributible to excessive alcohol consumption over many years. So it looks like I will have to stay off the grog from now on. I wish someone had made it illegal for me to buy alcohol when I was in my late teens.
Hang on....it WAS illegal to drink before I turned 21 back then......Hmmm I wonder what went wrong.........the law was in place, why didn't it protect me

Cheers (and no beers)

Pop

You can outlaw grog as much as you want, but it wont work. Witnessed a group of aboriginals get a 20 litre old flour drum, 4 large bottles of raspberry cordial, 4kg of sugar and some packets of yeast. They had left it for about 2 hours and were scoffing it down as if there was no tomorrow. No alcohol buzz, but the sugar hit certainly had an effect. Another point about stopping many of the community people from drinking is the extra money that they will spend by having to drink ina licenced place. Say a 30 pack of 4xxxx gold is $50.00 Because they cant buy a slab between say 3 blokes (10 cans each), they have to buy at pub over the bar. At $4.20 a pot they then would be spending close to $50.00 anyway on grog. However thats $50.00 each, not $50.00 between 3. The publican is laughing all the way to the bank and the drinkers families go hungry for another day. Where is the sense? You will also notice that the vast majority of the heavy drinkers stick to vic bitter or melbourne. Both heavy beers. Why not totally ban these for sale in known trouble areas. Mid strength and light beer only. Banning grog totally wont happen. Too many people making too much money!