But, there is, it turns out, no end yet to Mr Deason. He might have left the building but he has not left the liquor trade. Mark Price backgrounds one of the most colourful figures in Dunedin's student drinking culture as he sets out to bring back the "Bowler".
Mark Deason describes it now as "the peak of our insanity".
In February 2007 his Bowling Green Hotel hatched a plan to attract student drinkers by offering to swap beer for petrol.
Students who delivered a litre of petrol to the pub would get a litre of beer in return.
And, there was more.
Students would be able to go in the draw to win a petrol-soaked couch, complete with a box of matches.
To Mr Deason it was just another orientation week promotion designed to be a bit of fun.
To the Fire Service it was "dangerous", "irresponsible" and "totally inflammatory".
It did not go ahead and, after considerable publicity, the promotion cost Mr Deason the proceeds from three days of trading and he narrowly escaped a charge of sedition.
Mr Deason says "the Bowler" did change its ways after the events of 2007 but he remains unrepentant about playing the promotions game to the hilt.
"The whole thing was coming up with outrageous ideas to sort of stimulate and bring people through the doors.
"But that was the nature of the game. That's the way pubs were. It wasn't just us.
"We were up against every other publican who was really, in those days, just promoting cheap drinks."
For 11 years as the Bowling Green publican, Mr Deason trod the fine line between good taste and bad, fame and infamy.
His first success came with his 2005 "Wife-Beater Wednesday" promotion.
The idea of students turning up in singlets - known as "wife-beaters" - and getting six double shots of spirits for $10 was condemned as "unhealthy" by authorities.
But the promotion put the Bowling Green on the student drinking map.
"That's sort of where we did start forging a name for ourselves. We worked with things where people were too politically correct," he says.
"There has been a political element to what we have been doing."
Mr Deason eventually changed the name of the promotion and reduced the discount but still maintains it had nothing to do with encouraging husbands to beat their wives.
"Everyone had this idea in their head and they were quite happy just to go forth and try and slay the young over-enthusiastic publican guy."
Mark Deason was born across the road from the Bowling Green, at Queen Mary Maternity Hospital, in Dunedin on June 27, 1974.
He attended the Alexandra, St Clair, George St Normal and Maori Hill primary schools and by the age of 18 had lived in 20 houses with his house renovator father Paul and mother Heather.
High school at Otago Boys was followed by three years of economics at the University of Otago, but the prospect of working in a bank did not appeal and he started dabbling in other subjects.
"To be quite honest, I didn't turn up most of the time. I found it completely boring and I found most of the lecturers utterly uninspiring. I was just in the wrong place.
"And then I discovered pubs, I discovered jugs of beer and bowls of bloody fries, mate, and the rest is history."
By the end of 1995 he had begun doing some "basic promotional work" at the Bowling Green; sitting statistics exams for other students in his spare time.
The pub was owned by Dunedin identity Fred Daniels and his wife Pat. Mark Deason had been at university with their son Mike.
"I sort of stumbled upon a real family culture at the Bowler ...
"Fred was the dad, and he was a good sort, and Pat, well, she was the hard stick. She used to keep everyone else in line.
"And they even had the old family dog ...
"I used to walk the dog up to the Cook [hotel] a couple of times a week and take him for a s*** up there.
"And walk him back."Work on promotions led to more work cooking, dishwashing and cleaning.
"And, in the end, I just became fascinated with this work and this pub."Mr Deason ran the kitchen at one stage.
"Our whole goal was to fill the plate with as much food as we could fit on it.
"People were happy with their feeds, but I don't know if they made much money in those days."
And, he also tried his hand as the pub's disc jockey although often his music tastes clashed with those of female pub-goers.
"Back then I was listening to all the bad-attitude music, all the gangsta rap ...
"NWA, Ice Cube and Cypress Hill and all that crazy music and all they wanted to listen to was all that sing-along happy girly stuff like Priscilla Queen of the Desert."
Mr Deason said the pub, at that time, had "a real rugby-head culture".
"It was pretty feral sort of days, especially for someone who was rebelling against just about everything in life.
"I was a tall, skinny white guy with green hair and with one of those earrings through my eyebrow. In a rugby pub.
"On many occasions they tried to pull it out of my eye as I was zipping by picking up glasses.
"They didn't appreciate me in their space."
A change of ownership at the Bowling Green led to a change of pub for Mr Deason and a year as DJ and promoter at the Fat Lady's Arms.
"We learned how to discount drinks deeply; doing `buy three for the price of one' type stuff and 50c spirits and all sorts of things.
"There was quite a price war between the Fat Lady's Arms and the Captain Cook in those days.
Previous to that, all the publicans had sort of had a bit of an understanding - they wouldn't do any deep discounts; they wouldn't erode the profitability for each other."
Mr Deason describes the price war now as "pretty ferocious".
"We had no real understanding and we didn't have any real training.
"We just knew what was sort of fun and what was cool and that was what drove us.
"We were quite in touch with the people back then and we sort of did a pretty good job of getting people in the door.
"We learned a lot about promotions and what people respond to.
"But, unfortunately, it was drink-orientated promotions."
Then, during a late-night beer garden discussion, Mr Deason heard another publican had been offered the Bowling Green but was refusing to pay beyond a certain limit.
"And that sort of made its way into my brain pretty good.
"And I remember, after the meeting, sort of saying to myself, `I'm going to buy the Bowler.'"
"So I got on the phone and I did something that I don't think I've ever done in my life.
"I phoned up Mum and said: `Mum, shall we go out to dinner? I haven't seen you for a long time.
"'Shall we catch up? Bring Dad'."
The family, as Rosehill Properties Ltd, came up with $70,000, moved into their new business on December 13, 1997, and set about painting, and hiring staff.
And, within weeks, they had come to the attention of liquor licensing authorities with plans for their first orientation week promotion for "the pub formerly known as the Bowler".
It featured beer at 1878 prices, or 5c a can.
"And I got a call from liquor licensing that said: `Hey, there'll be a bloody riot; there'll be carnage down there. Can't you put the price up?'
"And in the end, I compromised because they were good people to deal with and they ended up being 50c cans of Speight's."
Mr Deason says the liquor rules then were not as strict as today and there was a different attitude to alcohol.
"It was almost part of your nutrition. It was such a part of the student lifestyle. It was nothing to get into an absolutely horrific drunken state, whether in the street or in a pub.
"It was just accepted.
"So drink promotions back then ... there was no sense around it that it was morally wrong or that it was bad.
"Most of the stuff happened in the north end of town so the regular humans of Dunedin rarely had to witness it.
"So, a lot of it was quite acceptable."
Mr Deason believes the pub's management, in its early days, was "flying by the seat of our pants" without a good business structure.
"We didn't even know if we were paying most of the bills.
"It was just, some months you paid them, some months you didn't. And it's amazing we actually survived."
Ultimately, the Frederick St pub did not survive, closing down earlier this year after noise issues affected its closing time.
Mr Deason has kept the name alive with his new Moray Pl premises being called "The Bowler" but the cheap liquor promotions of the past will not be resurrected.
Mr Deason says he intends developing the same sort of "family" atmosphere that attracted him to the Bowling Green as a young student.
"... they move away from home, they are learning about themselves, they are screwing up, they are making mistakes in life.
"They are really finding out what they don't like in life rather than anything else.
"The pub has always been a bit of a place where they are really essentially building character ... it was a place where I really discovered who I was and who I wasn't ..."
