The smell of surrounding flora may be the only thing in the air soon after a proposal to make all parks and playgrounds in Wellington smoke-free was presented to the Wellington City Council.

Following similar measures implemented by over thirty other councils around New Zealand, the Cancer Society and Regional Public Health jointly submitted the recommendation to the WCC’s Strategy and Policy committee for consideration.

The proposal includes recommendations that shy away from making the policy a law enforcement issue, saying, “an educational policy is favourable”.

“There is no requirement to the police. Rather, it is more about changing peoples’ attitudes.”

Sponsors of the proposal emphasise the importance of reducing smoking in areas that children frequent to stop young people from seeing smoking as acceptable and normal.

Leanne Toledo of the Cancer Society says that while other legislation has removed smoking from workplaces, it is imperative to focus on public spaces where it is visible to children.

“This policy will help to make smoking a less normal activity, as people won’t be lighting up in any area. Parks and playgrounds in particular are about enjoying the environment, and they need to be safe.”

According to information taken from the WCC website, the petition to ban smoking along the Golden Mile had gathered 672 votes in support before it was presented to the Council, while at the time of print the petition to allow smoking had 32 signatures.

Toledo rejects the idea that the smoke-free parks and playgrounds proposal is an infringement on personal freedoms.

“It’s unacceptable to appear publicly without clothes on. It’s also unacceptable to create a noise nuisance in shared areas. These activities are legal and normal in certain environments, however in public places it is socially agreed upon that this doesn’t happen. It would be the same with smoking.”

The proposal doesn’t seek to discriminate against smokers in public she said, only to restrict the activity of smoking.

“It’s about the behaviour, not the person.”

Opponents of the proposal are wary that such legislation would try to criminalise an otherwise legal activity.

Opponent of the proposal Quentin Sciascia submitted an e-petition to the WCC to “counteract the rhetoric” of another e-petition which suggested banning smoking along Wellington’s ‘Golden Mile’. In his petition to continue allowing smoking along the Golden Mile, Sciascia said that “smoking is not illegal, nor should it ever be”.

For crowds of people the end of summer was celebrated last Saturday in a wash of scorching sun, fine local music, and floods of beer as the Tui Brewery played host to the second annual Small Town, Big Sounds concert. Following on from the success of the inaugural concert last year, this year saw the return of the day-long event that saw huge crowds come flooding into the tiny settlement of Mangatinoka.

While ticket prices were well above similar events in the region, such as the annual Summer Hummer concerts in Masterton, concertgoers were treated to an extensive line-up of entertainment throughout the whole day.

However, having been a student for a while now, I am well practised at scoring things for free, and so it was that I stumbled across a couple of media passes to the event. While thinking that I should write some form of review of what happened, I was not really expecting that my research for the article would go beyond drinking copious amounts of Tui and listening to free music with my flatmate. Well, that and seeing what access the passes gave us. Which leads to my flatmate and I sitting backstage partaking in the open bar.

Cue the media liaison for Dominion Breweries meeting us and ordering us away from backstage.

Wondering whether we were about to reprimanded for swiping the musicians’ drinks, we were taken to meet another media liaison, at which point we were provided with handfuls of free beer vouchers and instructions to come back in a few hours to conference with the bands. This is how, after two hours of rather rushed interview preparation and some of the best beer in the world—free beer—my flatmate and I came to be sitting backstage drinking and chatting with the boys from Evermore.

By no means a bad way to spend the last weekend of summer.

Things have been going very well for the boys from Fielding. They just recently finished up a support gig touring with Pink on her world tour, playing to packed arenas of tens of thousands across Europe and Australia. Not too bad for a band who, when I mentioned Victoria University, had memories of a gig several years ago on campus where, according to bassist/keyboardist Peter Hume, “It was so cold we were playing with fingerless gloves on.”

“Everyone was eating pizza and about four people were watching,” brother Dann Hume recalled. While over the years Evermore have gone on to bigger and better concert experiences, one wonders if some of the gigs on campus haven’t really changed much.

Peter said that after preforming in arenas across Europe and Australia to crowds in their tens of thousands playing somewhere as small as Mangatinoka could be a welcome change.

“Sometimes [the concert] can be a bit disengaged when it’s that big.”

However, lead singer/guitarist Jon Hume went on to say “We like playing to big crowds. We embrace the whole stage… use the space, and connect with everybody.” Indeed, if close enough to the stage that the surrounding sheep paddocks and the traffic along State Highway 2 were blocked from view, one certainly could be mistaken for thinking that Evermore were in fact playing to a crowd 10,000 strong, their stage presence obviously honed by recent touring overseas. That is until halfway through the set when drummer Dann spied a familiar face in the audience, telling the crowd that the person in question lives on the same street as his aunty in Fielding.

Dann had earlier explained the small shock he got when beginning fan favourites to locals and “the crowd cheered. I’d been away for so long I forgot people know our songs.”

One of the great things that the event has allowed the region is the ability to showcase such high-profile Kiwi acts when they might otherwise be lured away by opportunities overseas.

Lead singer Jon Hume said after preforming and recording predominantly in Australia “It’d be great to come back and tour in New Zealand sometime, [but] we got offered the Pink tour… New Zealand had to wait.”

The band were also glad for the opportunity to showcase some new songs set to be released with their upcoming Greatest Hits album.

“We’ll work with the songs live…[that’s] how you know how to play it,” said Jon Hume.

If the reaction of the crowd was anything to go by then future music from the Hume boys will be a sure success, as would showcases of other top acts in Mangatinoka in summers to come.

Drinking alcohol could soon be illegal in all of Wellington’s public spaces after a citywide liquor ban was proposed last month.

Social Portfolio leader Councillor Ngaire Best’s proposal suggests implementing a citywide liquor ban to combat what Best referred to as “extreme anti-social behaviour”.

Councillors on the Committee were quick to discourage the idea that the police will indiscriminately arrest anyone drinking in public.

Wellington Mayor Kerry Prendegast says she believes the police will use their discretion in response to the suggestion such a ban would stop the average Wellingtonian from enjoying drinking quietly and responsibly in public spaces.
“That’s not the kind of behaviour we are trying to stop.”

Exactly who the ban was targeting was heavily debated at a council meeting held last week. Tom White from the Newtown Wesley Community Action centre questioned why the NZI Sevens was acceptable, referring to it as an “organised piss-up”, and yet “a group of poor folk organise such traction”.

Councillor Andy Foster also cautioned others at the meeting about the perceived hypocrisy of the Council who are “condemning fringe disadvantaged groups” drinking on the streets, while at the same time when it comes to alcohol-laden events such as the Sevens, “we not only endorse that, we promote it”.

The proposal also included alternative options of simply leaving the current inner city ban in place, or implementing a liquor ban in the alleged problem area of Newtown.

Councillors and members of the public were divided over whether the problems surrounding public intoxication are issues that are affecting all of Wellington, or if the problem is restricted to Newtown and surrounding suburbs.

Councillor Best suggested that when drinking bans are restricted to certain areas, displacement of the problem takes place “so it becomes a citywide issue”.

Shortly before the proposal was voted on by the Committee­—with Councillor Iona Pannett the only dissenting vote—Councillor Foster closed with comments echoing the concerns of members of the public at the meeting, and other Councillors saying that to truly address the wide-ranging problems of alcohol abuse in the public sphere “we need a holistic approach… my fear is that after this we’ll say we’ve done our bit”.

Public submissions on the proposal open on 30 April.