An appeal for people to get in early with their liquor licence applications for the Christmas-New Year period has had a good response. The Waitaki District Council
recorded 23 applications had been lodged by last week, compared with 13 filed by the end of November last year.
''We have seen a considerable increase in applications from previous years, which is a good outcome,'' council regulatory services manager Lichelle Guyan said.
There had been no applications for licences for Christmas Day, and one for New Year's Eve.
Special licences did not usually require advertising for public submissions, but comment was sought by the council from the licensing inspector, police and Public Health South before being considered by the Waitaki district licensing committee.
An appeal for people to apply early was made by the council because changes in liquor licensing laws required applications to be in 20 working days before an event.
She said that applied not only to events being planned during Christmas-New Year, but also through to mid-February.''
It may seem quite some time away before a mid-February event but applying for a special liquor licence also has to take into account Christmas and other statutory holidays,'' she said.
For February events, an application would need to be made by December 18.
