DIAL A BEER SEEMS A BIT UNNECESSARY
Everyone loves putting kitchen duties aside and hitting up Uber Eats, but is alcohol delivery taking it a bit far?
MY name is Ann. And I’m an Uber Eats addict.
Despite spending hundreds of dollars on groceries every week, there inevitably comes a night (who am I kidding? It’s nights … plural) when I give in to my worst impulses.
It happens without warning … I glance over at my husband and suddenly our eyes meet, we silently nod, quietly close the refrigerator door … and open wide that app.
I’m happy to be the submissive one. I let him choose Mexican, Indian, Japanese, Thai … I’m easy to please.
And living near Nobby Beach, it’s easy to make those food fantasies come true.
Given that I’ve never been much good at traditional wifely duties like cooking and cleaning, it’s a great way to ease the guilt of an undomestic goddess.
And I’ve developed a taste for it, too. After all, gone are the days of the same old, same old deliveries of pizza and … well, pizza.
We can finally, and literally, add a little spice to our lives. Although it’s bad for our budget, it’s the perfect ingredient to make a happy home.
But.
While I’m happy to indulge in a naughty night or two, I’m a little perplexed by the trend for booze deliveries.
Sure, cooking is a chore, but picking up a bottle of wine or a carton of beer from the bottle shop is a delight.
Yet regional general manager of Uber Eats in ANZ Jodie Auster this week announced the company is keen to expand its alcohol delivery options with current partner BWS, with Queensland the first state on its list, beginning in Bundaberg.
A number of Gold Coast suburbs are already serviced by Jimmy Brings alcohol delivery, which was bought by Woolworths in 2018.
How much are you drinking when you haven’t got enough alcohol stocked in the house? And how badly do you need another that you need to pay someone to bring you more?
I really can’t think of a scenario where this service would be necessary that isn’t either dangerous or depressing.
And I’m not the only one. “For people who are working in this field trying to reduce harms from alcohol … on-demand liquor is not great news,” Julia Stafford, a research fellow with Curtin University’s Alcohol Programs Team, told the ABC.
“What about the vulnerable people who are at home … (or) there might be some problems in the home with (domestic violence).
“We know from heaps of research that the more alcohol that is available (and) the easier it is to access, the more we drink, and the more harms we see from alcohol.
“More alcohol in a community means more problems for police who deal with crime – our hospitals, our ambulance service, and our domestic violence services.
“How do we make sure that we’re not supplying alcohol to intoxicated people, or to young people and kids who may be buying it online?
“How do we make sure the delivery driver is willing and able to comply with those liquor laws?”
Australian Hotels Association CEO Bradley Woods says he too is worried that the easy-to-use services could trivialise the consumption of alcohol.
“(It’s) promoting a 30minute round delivery – like a pizza,” he said.
“It’s an impulse buy and it’s
treating alcohol as a very quick commodity as opposed to what it is, which is a drug of adult choice that needs to be given serious consideration.”
And what about the delivery drivers themselves?
What happens when the delivery person walks in on a scene of domestic violence? Or the female driver walks in on a group of drunken bros? Many of these drivers are not native English speakers, making them even more vulnerable in threatening situations.
God knows when the Uber Eats guy forgets my order of zucchini chips, it’s all I can do not to stab his moped tyres. And I’m sober.
It’s one thing to be addicted to takeaway meals, it’s another to be addicted to alcohol deliveries.
One is bad for your body and your budget.
But the other is a disaster waiting to happen – for the customer, for the driver and for the society which must inevitably intervene.
But it’s a business.
And there is money to be made.
So it won’t stop. Neither, unfortunately, will the social fallout.