Cops nab alleged grog runners

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Three women aged 47,  29 and 25 were arrested for  secondary supply of alcohol yesterday.
 
Alice Springs police say using surveillance and information received from members of the public the three women were observed selling alcohol from a vehicle at various locations across Alice Springs in the past week.
 
Yesterday they observed the offenders selling multiple bottles of wine outside a business before driving off. Officers stopped the vehicle and found 35 bottles of white wine and a quantity of cash.
 
The trio will be charged with multiple counts of sale of liquor not authorised by a license and supplying liquor in a general restricted area.
 
The suspects will be issued banned drinkers orders.
 
The vehicle has been seized and police will seek its forfeiture due to its involvement in the commission of these offences, says a police spokeswoman.
 
2550 police vehicle seizedActing Senior Sergeant Danny Bell says it will be alleged the women were highly organised and were targeting vulnerable members in the community, “effectively selling commercial quantities of alcohol.
 
“It is a serious offence to sell liquor without a licence, currently attracting a penalty of up to 12 months imprisonment and a substantial fine.
 
“Police will continue to use all available resources and strategies to target these offences and will seek maximum penalties for those prosecuted.
 
“Offenders also risk of having all items involved in such offences, including motor vehicles, seized.
 
“Those looking to engage in this criminal activity must also consider the increased penalties announced by the NT Government last month, with the maximum penalty to be increased to a $46,200 fine and three years imprisonment later in 2018,” says A/Snr Sgt Bell.
 
“We encourage everyone to report all suspected instances of illicit alcohol sales by calling Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.”
 
 
 

14 COMMENTS

  1. Is this even worthy of a media release. 35 bottles of a legal product (fermented fruit) and $95 cash seized.
    There must be better ways to reduce alcohol related harm than this. This is, at best, a piecemeal approach.

  2. Perhaps getting the names of those who were supplied the alcohol might also be a good idea. They obviously either cannot get to a drive thru bottleshop or a liquor store for one reason or another.
    Another idea might be to get those grog runners to actually go to the various drinking hotspots around town and pick up all of the empties for the next three months as part of their punishment.
    If they don’t do it then make them banned drinkers for five years or so and take away their vehicle licences and other goodies they get.

  3. @ Interested Darwin Observer. This story needs to be told so that other grog runners stop.
    It is illegal and is aimed at the vulnerable and the grog is no doubt being sold at inflated prices. Violence due to excessive alcohol consumption is a problem here.
    Health messages via the media don’t work. Peer pressure doesn’t work.
    These people need to held accountable for their actions and need to be up before the courts. So yes this is newsworthy.

  4. It’s not about the amount of money or quantity, it’s about the amount of damage to people’s lives, both primary and secondary that this disgusting conduct results in.
    I say throw the book at them and jail time. Forget about a penalty of picking up empties as that may encourage “customers”.

  5. @ Evelyne Roullet: I agree with you and the buying online of alcohol. But at least by catching these three it might send a message to others doing exactly the same thing, whether it be by online sales or driving to bottle shops and each buying a certain amount individually.
    Having seen the amounts that are bought each day by the same people, they are either alcoholics themselves, have parties every night or the obvious as shown here.
    Buying online or shipping it in will not stop but at least this is a start.

  6. @ Heather Wells: I am in total agreement with you on the subject: Send a message to those braking the laws.

  7. Wine has existed for near on 10,000 years. During that time we have gone to the moon and invented the internet.
    If you think the town’s problems are wine, then you are looking in the wrong place.
    The problems are more likely to be that wine can be attained with out exerting any effort to produce / buy / trade it.
    It can then be drunk in shelter in which the drinker did not have to exert any effort to buy or build it.
    The hospital will then patch you up with no effort or cost to the drinkers behalf.
    The extreme deficit of any personal responsibility or effort for one’s own survival and that of their family is what allows life to be wasted getting drunk.
    Welfare is the enabler and the creator of the inter generational alcoholism and hopelessness that we now witness.

  8. @ Interested Darwin Observer: The welfare industry fuels the economy of Alice Springs and it relies on perpetuating misery of the most venerable people.

  9. @ Ted Egan. Posted June 15 at 11:19am:
    I think you know the answer to that one, Ted.
    Since 1986 when Justice Muirhead proposed that glass flagons be withdrawn, due to their being a lethal weapon in alcohol-related fights, the packaging has changed and we have plastic bottles.
    In the apocalyptic world of a shrill society that is being destroyed by the commercialisation of alcohol, there are proposed variations to takeaway supply for Tennant Creek and the Barkly: 4-7 for Tennant Creeks and the wider Barkly 12-7 Monday to Saturday. No Sunday trading.
    The Licensing Commission proposes that the sale of the following products will be limited to no more than one of the following per person per day:
    • 18 cans or stubbies of light beer (not more than 2.7% alcohol by volume); or
    • 12 cans or stubbies of mid-strength beer (not more than 3.5% alcohol by volume); or
    • 6 cans or stubbies of cider or full strength beer; or
    • 6 cans or bottles of Ready to Drink mixes; or
    • One bottle of fortified wine; or
    • One bottle of green ginger wine; or
    • Two x 750 ml bottles of wine; or
    • One 750 ml bottle of spirits, unless one such bottle has been purchased in the past 24 hours.
    Any person of age who is not on the Banned Drinkers Register can purchase that amount of grog six days a week.
    A similar situation exists in Alice Springs seven days a week, with a floor price of $1.50 per standard drink.
    The Gunner Government was looking at buying back takeaway alcohol licences from the critical mass of outlets in the Alice Springs CBD, but I’ve not heard any success of late.
    At least it reveals an admission that the policy of the past fifty years of liberal supply has been disastrous.
    I knew two young Aboriginal men, among others, Colin Proud and Ivan Dixon when I worked at CAAMA in the early 80s whose lives were destroyed by alcohol.
    There have been thousands since.
    Colin was a teetotaller, but the destruction of his world was too much to bear. Ivan passed away, also in his 30s, from cirrhosis of the liver. They would have been in their 60s now and good friends, I’m sure.
    The sale of grog by Aboriginal-owned outlets and secondary supply by Aboriginal people is a fact of life.
    The latter is vice, the former is unfortunate. The net result is the same.
    It would still destroy people like Colin who lost hope in the apocalyptic world of a shrill society.
    We haven’t come a long way from the Yuendemu flagon wagon. The government drives it around the track while people look on like a sport in the colosseum.
    They probably think it’s politically naive to do much more or maybe, given the consultation over the Art Gallery, it’s what the people want.
    The proposal for a 24/7 Youth Centre has no mention of turning the tap down.
    The Gunner Government rejected limiting seven days a week takeaway in the NT as recommended by Justice Riley, but maybe we should be encouraged that they have proposed no Sunday in the Barkly and reinstated the BDR. It seems to have bipartisan support.
    Perhaps, Colin may have been encouraged and gone on the BDR.

  10. @ Russel Guy: The proposal for a 24/7 Youth Centre has no mention of turning the tap down?
    We all know why so many kids are on the street but talking of turning down the tap would have been off subject and direction would have changed boycotting the issue.
    I went to the meeting to put my hand up for volunteering to help the kids by giving them a safe place, not to debate the flow of alcohol in town.

  11. @ Evelynne Roullet. Posted June 16th at 4: 37PM.
    You acknowledge the connection between why so many kids are on the street and turning the tap down, but I wasn’t just referring to the meeting that you attended.
    The philosophy behind the proposed THIS WAY youth centre, outlined in several posts, has made no mention of reducing the alcohol supply to the parents and families of these kids, despite my comment at the time that there is a connection.
    As Rainer Chlanda has mentioned in his latest contribution to this debate, there were conflicting views at the meeting.
    I don’t know if alcohol was mentioned, because I was unable to attend, but it seems to me that the philosophy so far espoused requires more input and that is why I have written about the harmful levels of consumption still practised and the liberal supply of alcohol still available in Alice Springs.
    Surely, enabling the kids to return to a safe home, if they have one, in which alcohol dependency is mediated by turning the tap down, should be part of the equation.
    You imply that it would have been off-subject and boycotted.
    The continuing head in the sand denial of liberal supply is counter-productive to solving youth issues in a family-related way.
    There needs to be a continuing debate about the flow of alcohol in town.
    If you sow the wind, you reap the whirlwind.
    The NT has the highest rate of alcohol consumption per capita than any other state in Australia.
    The Gunner Government has begun the reform.
    My point is that it needs to go further and that community action, such as the meeting set up by the organisers of THIS WAY, should publically declare direction for government reform.
    No Sunday take-away would be a useful place to turn the tap down for the many reasons enumerated over many years, not least the huge saving to government and a more co-ordinated approach recommended by Rainer Chlanda.

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