DAVID UNWIN/STUFF

Bottle store owner Baldeep Dhillon is volunteering to have trading hours cut.

The owner of seven bottle stores wants the Palmerston North City Council to force him to shut the shops at 9pm.

Big Barrel director Baldeep Dhillon said the council's local alcohol policy should restrict alcohol trading hours to remove the temptation of late-night binge drinking.

The draft policy proposes bringing back closing time by one hour from 11pm to 10pm, but Dhillon said that was not enough to change anything.

"I could do it myself, but that won't help when people can just go across the road."

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Dhillon said the problem with staying open late in the evening was with returning customers. "We don't want to be open for second servings."

He said peak sales were around the time people were heading home from work, picking up a bottle or a box on the way.

"Then some people can think straight, and some can't, and they decide to go and get another."

Dhillon said while anyone who was intoxicated should not be served, that did not stop a customer who had been allowed to be served from opening a can or a bottle in the car park, and then driving drunk.

He said children in Highbury and Cloverlea were going to school without lunch because the adults had spent all their money on alcohol the night before.

"All our responsible citizens have to do something."

Dhillon said staffing bottle stores late into the evening was also an issue.

It could be unpleasant for staff having to refuse service.

And with the proliferation of off-licences, it was difficult to achieve enough sales to justify a second staff member.

"To have just one person on duty is asking for trouble."

Several councils have already proposed 9pm closing. Of the policies that have survived appeals so far, Ashburton has imposed 9.30pm closing, and New Plymouth and Gisborne have 9pm closing.

Dhillon's submission to the council also proposes other measures such as capping the number of off-licences in the city, and restricting the distances they have to be from places like schools and churches.

He said there should be a hold placed on the issue of new licences until the new policy took effect.

Council policy analyst Peter Ridge said 44 people and groups had made submissions on the draft local alcohol policy and 17 wanted to speak to councillors.

The high number meant the hearing of submissions had been put off until October 16 to make sure there was time to get through them.

He said there was a wide range of suggestions to consider.

The difficulty was that any restrictions imposed in the policy had to be able to be backed up by sound evidence that they were necessary to reduce alcohol harm in the community.

City councillor Lew Findlay, who said the draft policy was a huge disappointment, said he hoped the submissions would provide the council with opportunities to do more.

"I'm not a total wowser, but the sale of alcohol needs to be better controlled."

Countdown Alcohol responsibility manager Paul Radich said the supermarket chain was talking to the city council and generally supported the 10pm closing option.

"Customers tell us that they prefer the convenience of us being able to retail beer and wine up until 10pm. However, we ultimately listen to the community."

A spokeswoman for Foodstuffs and Liquorland said they favoured the current national default hours of 7am to 11pm to suit customers' varied working hours and shopping times.

"That said, we strongly believe that having a liquor licence is a privilege not a right."

 - Stuff