WARNING: No washing machine content this week.
Instead, for this week, I’m going to traverse a wide variety of topics. Buckle up.
Maybe it is the Dunedin weather, or where we are in the election cycle, but people seem quite gloomy at the moment.
There has been a lot of chatter about businesses closing, particularly in the hospitality sector, as well as retail.
Those in the retail or hospo sector who have survived lockdowns and the impact of Covid are now operating in a flat economy where people are spending less, while expenses, the likes of power, fuel and insurances, have gone up.
I was struck by a story a colleague of mine did recently about Tauranga’s CBD being a ‘ghost town’.
It is not uncommon to see rows and rows of empty buildings in that city, which is meant to be the fastest-growing city in New Zealand. As an aside, I once wrote a head-to-head story about Tauranga overtaking Dunedin in terms of population.
I wrote this in that 2017 article:
Dunedin is no Tauranga; it has heritage, culture and a pulse.
It is a city where tens of thousands of young New Zealanders spend the best years of their lives studying, partying and watching couches mysteriously combust under the intensity of the Dunedin sun.
Tauranga is a retirement home - It's a satellite suburb of Auckland. It's a town which grew too fast.
And Dunedin is a city that knows a thing or two about the vagaries of booms.
Anyway, I was walking down George St and I was pleasantly surprised to see fewer empty shop fronts than I anticipated.
But the issue, to me at least, appears to be more on Princes St, and whether that will accelerate once the work on George St has been completed.
But it got me thinking about hospo places, because there has been a few pubs, restaurants and cafes, closing in recent times. That comes as the city has held major events, including the FIFA Women’s World Cup, and the All Black v Wallabies match on Saturday. Those events will pump millions into those beleaguered sectors.
Dunedin always had a reputation for a city with a large number of drinking establishments, but has that changed like people said? Are there fewer places to go out and drink in Dunedin? The results may surprise you.
I sent-off a LGOIMA (Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987 to those playing at home) to ask the Dunedin City Council “for the number of licensed premises (off and on-licence) for each year, over the last ten year”.
I was expecting the reply to take weeks, as I recently got a ‘fuck-off’ reply from a Government department, four months after I filed a request.
Less than a day later, I got a reply. Well done DCC.
A quick read of it shows that on-licence, which effectively “allows the sale and supply of alcohol for drinking at the specified licensed premises, such as cafes, taverns and hotels”, has stayed fairly constant. The numbers peaked in 2020 (Covid) and then returned to a similar number. Since 2018, those numbers have been slightly inflated due to the inclusion of caterers’ numbers which hover in the single digits.
Off-licence premises are a bit different, that is where you sell booze to be consumed elsewhere. That includes the likes of supermarkets, bottle stores etc.
That has actually declined quite a bit, and I don’t think that would cause so much of an outcry as the former.
It comes as there are currently two hearings this week for off-licence renewals at two very different ends of the market: Bottle-O on Hillside Rd, and the Mosgiel New World.
You can read both here:
I enjoyed this post from the Otago Regional Council after someone reported to the reportwallabies.nz site about the Australian rugby team. Nice.
Exciting to read that Chain Hills tunnel, which I profiled earlier this year, has had some gravel laid down on the track.
The idea is that the track would be open to the public as a walkway this summer.
What I was impressed with most was the driving. Check out this photo, courtesy of Walt Smith at WKC.
If you want more information about the project checkout their excellent website here.
I was interested to read this travel piece on Dunedin from none other than the BBC.
ICYMI I wrote a piece about King Loser, you can read that here.
I also covered the surprise guilty plea to the manslaughter of Sean Buis, you can read that here.
I have read a lot of chatter online about that plea, and that it was not to a murder charge. Many of the comments will say something like “life should mean life”.
My view is that holding someone accountable trumps a lot of that sentiment, but also sparing the victim’s family and the overall expense of a long trial, there is public interest in amending a charge to get an early guilty plea. The simple fact that a conviction was secured in just over a year since a man was killed, with some cases waiting years, is a good result from a terrible crime.
More details of that case will come out at sentencing, but what is known is that a man was killed for just $350.
That lookout is not far from my house, it is where my eldest used to play football, and my youngest started riding a bike in lockdown. Turns out it that it is also a prime place for drug deals. The summary of facts reads like some sort of pulp fiction novel:
“Moore intended to recover the debt, but another person had beat him to it, and he saw Buis being chased on foot.
Moore heard gunshots, and turned his vehicle away from the park and into Eglinton Rd. As Moore drove up the street he saw Buis run from the grassed area of Unity Park.
He drove at Buis with the intention of knocking him down to retrieve the drug money, but before he did so Buis tripped on the uneven surface of the roadway and fell onto the road.”
I know some have been singing the praises of some infrastructure finally being spotted arising from the new Dunedin Hospital redevelopment. But I remember covering the announcement by both major political parties about a new hospital during the election campaign.
And that election campaign? 2017.
One story I’m working on at the moment involves what you can buy inside the country’s prisons.
If you think supermarket prices have gone expensive, a prisoner pays $7.75 for 310g of Milo, $5.65 for 220g of Nutella, $1.75 for a 60g Moro bar, while dental floss will cost you $5.40.
Those same items at Pak’nSave today will cost you $5.99 (Milo), $4.55 (Nutella), $1.49 (Moro), and $4.15 (dental floss).
As always, it is a timely reminder not to go to prison. But I was fascinated to see some other items available for purchase, including hair dye, lipbalm and sunscreen.
Anyway, I’m going to reveal the surprising new currency inside the country’s prisons, stay tuned.
Here is an ad you might remember, famous for the goth girl finding herself by dressing like everyone else!
For this week I’ve chosen a location just outside of Dunedin, if you know where this is, please answer in the comments.
And lastly here is a great local song to end this on, The Thunder Theme by Ca$h Guitar:
Looking forward to next Sunday’s Dunedin premiere and gig, more details here.
Prisoners' "shop" is privately run... a few years ago it came up for re-tender or however they choose the profit makers and would you believe, a group of screws took it over. There is nowhere else prisoners can buy biscuits or toothpaste, some of them have friends who give them care parcels (gave? not sure what if any restrictions there are on that) and they can deposit money into their accounts, otherwise the money is what they earn for e.g. kitchen work. Hint: it's not "living wage" hourly :) These people are being exploited to the max, which is not the way to bring out good attitudes to society for when they are released.
Oh, now that is a photo I don't know the location of 🤔
Interesting statistics about the on-licenses. Would be more intrigued over the last 15 - 20 years though, when the University started buying up the pubs around campus.
Speaking of, I was one of the extras on that advertisement, filmed in July. They insisted we tried to make it look warm by getting rid of jackets/jerseys... Except you can tell it's the middle of winter as there's no leaves on the trees. We were feed soup and rolls for lunch, and I was paid by super market voucher 😅 We were on Union St bridge for ages while the band "played" that song over and over, knew it fairly well before it was released 🤣