Drinking in public, outside of zones of public land prescribed by local governments, is wonderfully legal in New Zealand. So if you want to walk over, on the public sidewalk, beer in hand, to your neighbour's house, that's perfectly OK. I like that.
Countdown, one of NZ's big chain supermarkets, has been having some trouble, though, with folks drinking in their parking lot in Mangere (not one of the places that'll get highlighted for tourists visiting NZ; Google News link gives one of the front page headlines "Referee hit by baby-holding spectator"). So Countdown's owners asked City Council to include their parking lot as one of the prescribed places for a liquor ban. Council agreed, Countdown put up signs warning of the private liquor ban. Eminently reasonable.
But apparently, reports the National Business Review, liquor bans can only be enforced on public land, not on private land, even if the landowner requests it. The most that the police or private security could do is issue a trespass notice against folks drinking in the parking lot and arrest them for trespass if found there again.
Isn't it a shame that property owners cannot contract with the monopoly law provider, government, for different services?
