Dunedin Mayor Aaron Hawkins has called for communities to be prioritised over liquor companies in the aftermath of a chaotic St Patrick’s Day during which numerous students were injured.
Mr Hawkins said St Patrick’s Day events came up as part of wider conversations during a meeting of the Tertiary Sector Steering Group yesterday.
Last Thursday, 28 people, many of whom were students, piled pressure on Dunedin Hospital’s emergency department, including two who were seriously injured.
The scheduled meeting included representatives from both the University of Otago and Otago Polytechnic, Mr Hawkins said.
It was "always painful" to see students getting injured, but it was naive to pretend some young people would not make poor decisions sometimes.
As a signatory to the Sophia Charter, the Dunedin City Council was committed to reducing risk.
It would be easy to lecture about personal responsibility, but it was more important to focus broadly on how to reduce alcohol-related harm.
There were few tools available and some were unreasonably inflexible, such as local alcohol policy process which were a "huge obstacle" to reducing harm.
"Tilting the scales in favour of communities, rather than the liquor industry, would be a good place to start," he said.
University vice-chancellor Prof David Murdoch attended the meeting.
A variety of matters were discussed, including St Patrick’s Day celebrations and how things could be done better, he said.
