A Queenstown tennis coach who sold cannabis to a 15-year-old boy has failed to keep his name under wraps.
Louie Lanz, 39, asked for permanent name suppression at his sentencing in the Queenstown District Court this week on a charge of selling the drug to a minor.
Judge Catriona Doyle expressed her doubts about the application’s chances from the outset, saying she would want to know about the defendant’s background "if I was the parent of a child about to start tennis lessons" with him.
They met twice near a supermarket in Frankton, and once at a bus stop near the defendant’s home.
The boy’s mother went to the police after noticing suspicious messages between the pair on a social media app.
After his arrest, Lanz told police he "knew the boy was young and it wasn’t cool" to be selling him drugs, but did it because he had financial issues.
Lanz, who appeared in court by audio visual link from Invercargill Prison, has had interim name suppression until now.
He has spent a total of two weeks in custody after breaching his bail conditions four times.
Defence counsel Jono Ross said Lanz claimed the boy contacted him repeatedly asking to buy the drug.
The defendant, who was an alcoholic, went ahead with the sales because he needed the cash to buy alcohol.
However, it was "hyperbolic" to call them commercial transactions.
Although Lanz had convictions for drink-driving, breaching alcohol interlock and zero-alcohol licences, as well as breaching court orders and sentences, he had no history of drug offending, Mr Ross said.
After his release, Lanz would go straight to a detox facility for a few days, then wanted to find a place at a residential rehabilitation centre.
The publication of his name in the media would have consequences for his tennis coaching career and mental health.
He had been the complainant in a trial five years ago in which it emerged he held the "farcical view" the Earth was flat, and another public airing of that case would again expose him to public mockery.
Doyle said she was declining the suppression application because it did not meet the legal test of "extreme hardship".
The charge had a maximum penalty of eight years’ prison, which reflected the community’s need to express its disapproval, and to "ensure anyone else who’s minded to supply drugs to children gets a clear message about the court’s likely response".
However, Lanz had a "chronic and longstanding" alcohol issue, and it was in the public’s interest for the court to make a therapeutic as well as punitive response.
"That is the best chance he and the community have of not seeing him again in court."
She convicted Lanz and imposed 200 hours’ community work.
He would be subject to 12 months’ supervision by the probation service to support him in his "sobriety journey", she said.
