Bottle shops in Adelaide’s CBD have been restricted from selling some wine and spirits under a four-week trial initiated over fresh concerns of alcohol-fuelled anti-social behaviour.
The restrictions were added by the South Australian Liquor and Gambling Commissioner, Dini Soulio. They began on Good Friday (7 April) last month.
Soulio will meet with bottle shop operators, police, and local council to determine the success of the restrictions this week. They’ll also propose new long-term measures to curb alcohol use in the CBD.
SA Premier Peter Malinauskas has said there’s “always a need” to respond to alcohol-fuelled violence. He also said it was “reasonable to take measured steps to stop that where we can”.
What are the Adelaide alcohol restrictions?
The sale of large-volume (four or five litres) or fortified wine casks are banned under the new restrictions.
Daily alcohol restrictions on the amount of wine and spirits that can be bought were also put in place.
This meant only one two-litre wine casks, two 700ml bottles of spirits, or a single one-litre spirits bottle could be bought by one person per day.
Why are the alcohol restrictions happening in Adelaide?
Soulio said the trial hoped to “mitigate anti-social behaviour as a result of excessive liquor consumption in the CBD”. The SA Government’s Safety and Wellbeing Taskforce supported the trial.
He said “most” bottle shops in the CBD were already limiting the sale of some of the wine and spirits that were banned under the trial.
How did the Opposition respond?
SA Opposition leader David Speirs said measures to address violence and anti-social behaviour in the city were a “good thing”. He said some areas, such as Adelaide’s North Terrace, are “getting pretty grim”.
