Tauranga City councillors have started a process that will give the council greater control over liquor outlets in the city.

At Tuesday's Strategy and Policy Committee meeting, councillors approved a staff request to begin the process of developing a Local Alcohol Policy for Tauranga.

Tauranga City Council will look at a Local Alcohol Policy for Tauranga. Photo: File.

The policy will give council more control over where liquor can be sold, how many liquor licences should be in a particular part of the city, trading hours, and one-way door restrictions – something councillors have already discussed introducing on The Strand.

Local alcohol policies are possible as part of the Alcohol Reform Bill, which is expected to undergo its third reading sometime during the next month. The bill is a wide ranging reform of alcohol laws which has been under way since 2008.

One aspect of the bill is the new power for local authorities to establish a local alcohol policy.

The council's strategic planner Jeremy Boase says the council has to act now if it is to take advantage of the new power when it becomes available after the Alcohol Reform Bill has been law for a year.

It's also possible the rules may change. The National Government states local policies are optional for local authorities, but the NZ Labour Party has submitted a supplementary order paper seeking an amendment to make local alcohol policies mandatory.

The preliminary work – formulating and writing a draft policy, consulting, preparing a provisional policy, publicly notifying it, hearing appeals, adopting it and three months later bringing it into force, is a long process says Jeremy.

'It is going to take a period of time to get information from our own system, the Ministry of Justice, Police, District Health Board and contacts,” says Jeremy.

'If you want to be ready in 12 months, you are going to have to start on it soon. If you start later it will take 12 months from then.”