No liquor store for Victory

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Campaigners against the controversial Victory Liquor Centre are calling its owners’ decision to withdraw their licence renewal application “a fantastic result for the community”.

Keep Victory Safe community developer Gayle Petch and Nelson City Councillor Matt Lawrey say the opening of the store in 2013 brought with it a significant rise in alcohol-related problems, including antisocial and intimidating behavior, broken bottles and RTD cans in the park and playground, vandalism and other petty crime.

Matt says the dramatic decrease in all of these problems since the shop closed in January proves that Victory was always the wrong place for a liquor store.

Gayle says she’s thrilled the store is gone for good. “A store selling cheap liquor, with easy access to a park and close to preschools and schools, was never something Victory wanted or needed, and I know many in the community will be breathing a sigh of relief. I certainly am!”

Both Gayle and Matt want to publicly and loudly thank Nigel McFadden, a partner in Nelson law firm McFadden McMeeken Phillips, who worked pro bono to help fight the licence renewal application.

Matt also wants to publicly thank the owners of the liquor store for withdrawing the licence renewal application. “Clearly they have listened to the community and for that they deserve credit,” he says.

Gayle and Matt say they are hugely grateful to the wide range of individuals, agencies and groups who objected to the licence renewal application.

“It’s incredibly heartening to know that, had this got to a hearing, the applicant would have come up against a wall of opposition from people who understood the harm the liquor store was doing, and who were prepared to do something about it,” says Matt.

There were 26 objections to the Victory Liquor Centre’s on-licence and off-licence renewal application from groups and individuals as varied as Victory Community Health, the Ministry of Innovation and Employment’s Labour Inspectorate, Victory Square Kindergarten, the Bhutanese Society of Nelson, the YMCA, and numerous Victory residents. The application was also opposed by the Police, Nelson Marlborough District Health Board and District Licensing Inspector Sarah Yarrow.