117075cs

26 Thursday March 16 2017
Latest Christchurch news at www. .kiwi
The Star
Viewpoint
Debate over closing time for Selwyn bars
Last week, Selwyn District
Council passed the Local
Alcohol Policy with a
maximum closing time for
taverns of 2am, one hour
later than had initially been
proposed.
District
councillor
Craig
Watson
writes in
response
to medical
Craig Watson
Alistair
Humphrey
officer of
health
Alistair
Humphrey’s
comments
disagreeing
with the
later closing
time. Dr
Humphrey
said that
every time
someone
in Selwyn
died in a car crash, was
assaulted or raped
“because someone has
had that extra bit of booze
at that time of night is
something that I hope will
weigh on the consciences
of those who made that
decision to push it out for
an extra hour”
Craig Watson – I want to
start by saying that I have not
been lobbied by a single person
before speaking and voting on
the Local Alcohol Policy. I was
disgusted by Alistair Humphrey’s
comments. I want to tell
a bit about my time as a student,
training at the University of
Otago in Wellington.
I remember going out with
mates until 1, 2, 3, 4am in the
morning, heck I even remember
a couple of times leaving a bar
when the sun came up. I grew to
appreciate the fantastic kebabs
for sale on my walk back to
Newtown, even if half the time I
woke up with them all over my
shirt the next day.
I remember pole dancing
with traffic lights on the way
home, singing karaoke like the
worst ever contestant for New
Zealand’s Got Talent, going for
a wee in the Basin Reserve and
sometimes waking up with a hell
of a hangover.
But what I do not remember
doing on those fantastic nights
out where I was drinking past
1am was raping someone.
Alcohol does not make you a
rapist, drugs do not make you a
rapist, a girl kissing you and letting
you walk her home does not
make you a rapist, heck a woman
wearing not much more that a
Band-Aid for a dress does not
permit, nor make you, a rapist.
Not understanding what consensual
sex means makes you a
rapist, stupefying a woman and
forcing yourself on them makes
you a rapist and not understanding
that no means no makes you
a rapist.
It is inflammatory, provocative
and inaccurate that he would
define that a bar closing at 2am,
3am or indeed not at all is somehow
permitting a rape culture
as opposed to a bar that closes at
midnight, 1pm or 10pm.
Dr Alistair Humphrey
responds to Cr Watson
In response to Craig Watson’s
opinion:
•In New Zealand, one half of
all violent crimes involve alcohol.
•10,000 sexual assaults per year
in New Zealand involve a perpetrator
affected by alcohol.
•About half of all sexual assaults
involve alcohol.
•Approximately 100 New Zealanders
a year die in an alcoholrelated
car crash.
•About half of all alcohol-related
presentations to Christchurch
Hospital Emergency Department
occur between 10pm and 4am,
peaking at 1am.
•Following New South Wales
‘lockout’ laws, which closed bars
earlier, non-domestic assault
was reduced by half in the Kings
Cross area.
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