Liquor Imports

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31967, 19 April 1969, Page 12

Liquor Imports

Sir. —The duty and sales tax content in the consumer price of Scotch whisky, is $3 a quart, not $2.25 as stated in your sub-leader today. This amount includes accumulations of successive increases imposed over the last 10 years in particular, thus increasing the duty and tax from approximately $1.25 a quart. The trade and consumer alike continue to resent strongly these penal impositions.— Yours, etc., L. A. MILLS, President, N.Z. Wholesale Wine and Spirit Merchants* Federation. Wellington, April 18, 1969. Sir,—Your leading article on liquor imports invites some comment and clarification. The duty and sales tax on a bottle of Scotch whisky is $3—52.25 duty and 75 cents sales tax—and is landed in bond in Christchurch for $l. The duty and sales tax on a bottle of New Zealand-produced gin is $2.21 a bottle, which is bonded in Christchurch at 68 cents. As Scotch whisky retails at $5.15 a bottle as against $3.65 for New Zealand gin. it is not difficult to understand why gin commands 30 per cent of the liquor market in New Zealand. 1 wholeheartedly agree that the New Zealand gin industry should no longer be protected. It is neither an ailing old lady nor a teething infant. Let it stand on its own feet.—Yours, etc., ARDMORE. April 18. 1969. [Our apologies to the trade—and to the consumers of Scotch whisky. We had overlooked the sales tax in our calculations.- -Ed., “The Press.’’] Drinking Age Sir,—Break-throughs in science and technology have been made not so much by superhuman genius as by workers who have been just smart enough to see the obvious. The obvious thing to do about booze is, in the first stage, to free it from all restrictions so that booze can be bought anywhere by anyone. If we also make explicit the principle that, “He/she was shickered at the time and did not know what he/she was doing,” a principle already largely accepted in practice, crime will be defined almost out of existence. In the second stage, since booze is well-known as a promoter of good-fellowship and gracious living, especially among teen-agers, boozing can be made compulsory, even though there may be an increase of crime as some selfindulgent citizens are found sober twice within six months. Let New Zealand again lead the world in social reform.— Yours, etc., J. DUGDALE. April 18, 1969. Sir,' —Despite that most if not all of the thugs that gatecrashed at Belfast were under 21, they still managed to get liquor. Therefore, to maintain the legal drinking age at 21, as "Grow a Straight Tree” argues, would not, as it did not, prevent that or any other gang violence. Those minors who want liquor will get it even if the drinking age is raised. Lowering the legal age will simply legalise something

that is already a widespread reality. On the other hand, it will be just as difficult to distinguish among say 16-to-18- as it was among 19- The onlyanswer would be for, say, 18-to-20-year-olds to carry legal identity cards to establish their ages for the barman; otherwise no liquor would be served. Of course this will still not prevent 14-to-17-year-olds obtaining liquor illegally.—Yours, etc., SOLON. April 18. 1969,