A one-way door system for bars on The Strand is looking increasingly likely it will be trialled in Tauranga next year, following deliberations on the Local Alcohol Policy yesterday.

At the meeting the vote was signalling a 9am opening for on-licences and 1am closing everywhere except the Tauranga CBD, where closing will be 3am with a one-way door system being trialled from 2am.

It is likely a one-way door system from 2am will be put in place in pubs in Tauranga CBD.

The Tauranga City Council/Western Bay of Plenty District Council joint governance committee is keeping the option open to review the policy one or two years after its implementation.

All off licences, including bottle stores, grocery stores, and supermarkets, will be able to sell alcohol from 7am to 10pm. Councillors were reasonably clear on the need for parity, says Western Bay of Plenty District Council policy planning and community manager Rachael Davie.

When it comes to the number of off-licences operating in suburbs, councillors have asked staff to take an area-by-area approach, rather than the broad brush that limits it to 1.2868 off-licences per head of population, across the district.

'They haven't specifically resolved anything - they haven't made any decisions yet. But they have given us direction, which will inform their deliberations on the eighth,” says Rachael.

'The decisions they make in one area have implications for another, so they need to have that high level discussion whether they want to stick with a sub-regional approach – one rule across the board, or do you want to recognise that Te Puke is different to Tauranga CBD, is different to the Mount, and so on and so forth.

'We are dividing the sub-region into chunks to try and make it less homogenous, and tailor for different areas like Te Puke, Katikati. I think the direction around taking a differential approach, an area by area approach, will probably see some marked shift from the original policy.”

It will mean abandoning the population ratio, and making rulings on absolute numbers for each area.

'They clearly signalled that in terms of numbers the latter is the right approach, but they need more information to start having that conversation, that will then affect decisions in relation to proximity.

When the joint governance committee resumes deliberations on October 8, it will also consider the issue of proximity and how close off-licences can be to schools and how close to other off-licences.