Cutting ‘mad’ booze ban at hairdressers

The police have enough on their hands – that’s the argument from a newbie MP pushing for an overhaul of rules outlawing hairdressers from serving their customers a wine, beer or even a cuppa.
Dana Kirkpatrick, National’s East Coast MP, has lodged a members’ bill to get rid of “outdated” rules preventing hair salons and barbers from lawfully offering customers liquid refreshments. 
Serving tea and coffee is deemed unsafe under health regulations, and serving alcohol is additionally prohibited without a liquor licence.
Businesses that fail to comply with the Health Act 1956 by providing hot drinks or welcoming dogs into their salon could be hit with a $500 penalty. Those breaching the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act 2012 by supplying customers with alcoholic beverages face more substantial fines, up to a maximum of $40,000.
“It seems really trivial, but it makes a difference to the customer and to the experience the hairdresser can provide,” Kirkpatrick says.
Kirkpatrick has a personal connection to the bill – her aunt is a hairdresser at Mane Street Hair Design in Gisborne who shares her belief that the law is antiquated. 
Sarah Whitley-Kent, who owns the salon, says the bill would bring legislation in line with reality. She is one of many hairdressers and barbers who already provide customers with a complimentary cup of tea or coffee, despite it being against the law. 
“It is just mad,” she says. “It seems very outdated, the whole situation.”
“The reality is that people’s time is so much more restricted. Those two hours in a hair salon is a great time for them to wind down, have a cup of tea or coffee, maybe a wine, and take the opportunity to have some time out. 
“It’s nice for us to be able to provide that for our clients as an extra little thanks for coming.”
Members’ bills are introduced by members who are not ministers. The House gives precedence to local, private and members’ bills every second Wednesday, when counters representing backbench MPs’ members’ bills are drawn from a ballot box (actually a biscuit tin) and start their hopeful journey to become new laws. 
Kirkpatrick’s is an omnibus bill seeking to amend both the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act 2012 and the Health (Hairdressers) Regulations 1980.
A limited exemption to the former would be confined to alcoholic beverages of no more than 1.5 standard drinks and a tweak to the latter piece of legislation would also allow these businesses to let dogs on the premises.
Dr Eric Crampton, of the New Zealand Initiative, is supporting the bill but questions why hairdressing regulations are needed in the first place.
Crampton says a barber he frequented before Covid-19 had regularly supplied a Panhead Supercharger ale with a haircut, but stopped doing so after Wellington police started warning barbershops against the practice.
If Kirkpatrick’s bill becomes law she also looks forward to taking her Jack Russell – Doggit – along with her to the salon. Dogs are now allowed in some offices and in Parliament, Kirkpatrick points out, so why not hairdressers? 
“I think the police have enough on their hands that they don’t need to be policing this kind of thing.”