Alcohol ban extension sought for race meeting

About 6500 people are expected to attend the annual Christmas Race Meeting in Invercargill in December and police want an alcohol ban extension in surrounding streets.

The Southland Racing Club is holding its annual Christmas Race Meeting at Ascot Park on December 15.

Southland acting area commander Inspector Mike Bowman says the event is one of the most high risk alcohol abuse events in the city.

In a letter to the city council, Bowman says authorities had worked closely with organisers over the years to improve the running of the event and ensure everyone had a good time, ‘‘but not at the expense of large amounts of intoxication and annoyance to home owners in the area surrounding the course’’.

Some people drink alcohol before the event and intoxication levels rise during the day and common sense goes out the window and disorder becomes an issue, he says.

Some try to leave the course with alcohol and bottles, cans and rubbish are dumped on the street and thrown into private properties.

Last year the alcohol ban on surrounding streets was from 10am till 8pm.

However, this year’s event will have a two-hour after party for up to 1000 people so police want the alcohol ban on surrounding streets to be from 10am till 10pm.

The event organisers support the ban extension, a report to the city council says.

Southland Racing Club president/event organiser Sean Bellew said past events had seen a mass exodus of people at about 7pm which put duress on drinking establishments around the city.

The after party would hold some people back.

‘‘If we can send less people out of the gate at the same time it’s better for everybody concerned.’’

He agreed there were people who drank before the event, but said gate staff were good at vetting those people out.

‘‘We run pretty robust systems for checking people on arrival.

‘‘We have run this event for 12 years and we have got quite good at it.’’

The racing club did not sell alcohol in glass vessels on the course; while people seen trying to leave the course with alcohol were prevented from doing so, Bellew said.

Police want the temporary alcohol ban from 10am to 10pm to be from the intersection of St Andrews St and Racecourse Rd to the Racecourse Rd entrance of the Ascot Park Hotel, and from Racecourse Rd to Derwent St on Yarrow St.

City councillors will make the decision today.

Racecourse Rd will be closed to traffic from 8.30am till 7.30pm on the day of the races.

‘‘We run pretty robust systems for checking people on arrival.’’

Sean Bellew, Southland Racing Club president/event organiser