Supermarket clearance for low-strength beer

Press, 20 December 1985, Page 14

Supermarket clearance for low-strength beer

PA Wellington Low-strength beer can be sold in supermarkets, the Court of Appeal said yesterday. The Court, comprising the president, Sir Owen Woodhouse, Mr Justice Richardson and Mr Justice McMullin, decided unanimously to allow an appeal from L. D. Nathan and Company and Tradespan, N.Z., Ltd, for low-alcohol beer to be sold in supermarkets. Nathans, trading as Woolworths, introduced the lowstrength Isenbeck Light and Northern Light' beers to their shelves a year ago. But they were taken off when the Hotel Association of New Zealand won a High Court case in October in which the Court ruled the low-alcohol beer was beer and sales must be confined to licensed premises. Although the two beers contained no more than two parts per cent of proof spirit (1.40 per cent alcohol by volume), the H.A.N.Z. contended that the sales

were contrary to the Sale of Liquor Act 1962. Nathans appealed against the High Court decision on November 15 and the appeal was given a priority fixture for commercial as well as seasonal reasons, Sir Owen said. Sir Owen said the beer was low strength. It was the equivalent of a normal strength whisky watered down about 21 times. Expert evidence showed that the level of alcohol in the blood of an adult drinking the low strength could not reach the 80mg per 100 ml. For this to happen, the person would have to drink nine litres of the liquid within a five-hour period — a physical impossibility. “On such a basis the lowstrength beer has no intoxicating potential.” Mr Justice McMullin noted that ordinary standard beers had been shown on analysis to contain 3.5 per cent alcohol by volume and export beers five per

A sample of boysenberry and apple fruit juice sold in a coffee bar proved on analysis to contain more than 1.01 per cent alcohol by volume. “That is more than the reading for Northern Light in any of the samples analysed and more than Iseribeck Light in most of the samples analysed," he said. Mr Justice McMullin said the word, “beer,” covered a variety of liquids ranging from those which were very intoxicating to those which were not.

Ginger beer, sold in many dairies was an example of the latter, he said.

“A product which is called beer does not necesarily become ‘beer* for the purposes of the Sale of Liquor Act although the fact that its manufacturers or suppliers call it by that name may be evidence against them that it is indeed beer for such purposes,” he said. “Nor does the fact that it

has the colour or appearance of beer necessarily bring it within Section 2,” he said. “The essential attribute of beer is that it is intoxicating. That is its ordinary popular meaning.” Mr Justice McMullin said the purpose of liquor legislation was to control the sale of intoxicating liquor. He suggested that in future legislation it might be wise to make provisions which placed on the vendor of a product, having the name or appearance of beer or one which was sold as beer, the burden of proving that the product was not liquor. The Court decided that any low-strength beer containing 1.14 per cent by volume (two parts per cent proof spirit) or less does not fall within the definition of “liquor” as set out in section 2 of the Sale of Liquor Act 1962.

Nathans were awarded $2500 in costs to cover the High Court and Court of Appeal expenses.