Hard News: Auckland City Nights
240 Responses
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Sacha, in reply to
a half-hour queue
That'll impress our foreign visitors
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Christopher Dempsey, in reply to
Now how long is it going to take to run the tram all the way to Britomart?
Tis a question on everyone's lips. Answer: Not long (comparatively speaking in Auckland speak). Give it three years or so.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
I would have thought cigarette vendors to be a sunset industry.
I wish the same could be said for folks who profiteer off self-inflicted alcohol poisoning while blithely flouting licensing laws, but I won't hold my breath waiting...
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Christopher Dempsey, in reply to
folks who profiteer off self-inflicted alcohol poisoning while blithely flouting licensing laws
In all cases I've seen, the majority of such folks don't flout the licensing laws. The licensing laws, as I've described before, means that it is very very easy to get a liquor licence and extremely difficult to lose one, and the law is sufficiently 'wide' enough to the point such folk hardly need to flout the law in term of hours of sale or discounting in supermarkets, or the development of alcopops.
Neo-liberalism delivered self-inflicted alcohol poisoning (it's a free market after all and your choice) while protecting the profits of those who merely enable such poisoning (it's a free market after all).
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Given the number of submissions to the Waitemata LB draft Plan asking for smokefree public places I would have thought cigarette vendors to be a sunset industry.
It's a terrible thing, I know, but not actually illegal, and you'd think outside tables, at night, would be a permissible setting.
But it's not just ciggies. Where do you buy a newspaper, or a snack for the kids? I honestly think a convenience store would be of service to families, and I'm not that bothered as to what Waterfront Auckland thinks about it.
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nzlemming, in reply to
You really have to wonder what's going through the heads of those ministers.
What's in their heads is they a) never expected Rodney to be able to force it through in one term so they didn't properly prepare for it, b) when they saw that it was actually going to happen, set it up for Banks to be the steward of central government policy for Auckland because, well, born to rule, natural order of things yadda yadda, and c) faced with an actual elected council that isn't a puppet for the Nats, have no real idea how to deal with it so automatically say "no" to anything proposed.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
In all cases I’ve seen, the majority of such folks don’t flout the licensing laws.
With all due respect, Christopher - bullshit. You know as well as I do that licensed premises are not supposed to serve alcohol to intoxicated persons, or allow such persons on their premises. We both know that happens routinely, and I personally have little sympathy for police or politicians (local or central) who wring their hands about "binge drinking culture" while being unable, or unwilling, to enforce the laws already on the books. Put it in the too hard basket, if you must, but let's just stop pretending it isn't an issue.
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licensed premises are not supposed to serve alcohol to intoxicated persons
Define "intoxicated"?
- over the youth limit for driving?
- over the adult limit for driving?
- obviously affected by alcohol?
- sufficiently annoying to other bar patrons as to drive a number of paying customers away that isn't offset by the inebriates own consumption?
- vomiting?
- unconscious?I suspect that most bar owners draw the line at point 4.
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Mike Graham, in reply to
+1, especially:
c) faced with an actual elected council that isn’t a puppet for the Nats, have no real idea how to deal with it so automatically say “no” to anything proposed.
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Sacha, in reply to
What's in their heads is
ideology. and that's all
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Kumara Republic, in reply to
You really have to wonder what’s going through the heads of those ministers.
Red Ken vs the Iron Lady, methinks? It'll look horribly spiteful if they actually do take a leaf out of the latter's book.
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Cheese on Toast has a good bunch of B Street photographs.
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recordari, in reply to
Cheese on Toast has a good bunch of B Street photographs.
What a great collection. Makes me wish I'd ventured out, rather than opting for the alternative, which didn't quite go to plan.
He seems to be using jAlbum, which is my pick for making online albums in a hurry too, in case anyone's interested.
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Lucy Stewart, in reply to
And there is a massive Starmart at the base of the Crab – the old AHB building – anyway, about a 10 min walk away.
Which would be a pretty acceptable solution *if people could find it*. Dairies just aren't the sort of thing that end up on maps. (Plus, overseas visitors aren't even going to know what a "StarMart" is if it was marked somewhere.) If you could find some way to convey that information to the people who needed it - or, I'm not familiar with the geography of the area, the place is one people are inevitably going to pass on the way there - that's fine, but otherwise...
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Sacha, in reply to
*if people could find it*
The Starmart mentioned is back over the pedestrian bridge; not even in the same conceptual area.
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Kumara Republic, in reply to
who then explained to his friend that I hosted “a kind of underground TV show”. Yeah, that’s me: an urban media guerilla.
All the more so when TVNZ7 sadly gets unplugged by tunnel-vision. Where to after that?
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Simon Grigg, in reply to
Which would be a pretty acceptable solution *if people could find it*. Dairies just aren't the sort of thing that end up on maps.
I just entered 'convenience store' in my phone and google pointed me to a bunch of local 7-elevens (and one Star Mart - they're not as common but they exist). I'd imagine it would do similar things in Auckland?
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Lucy Stewart, in reply to
I just entered 'convenience store' in my phone and google pointed me to a bunch of local 7-elevens (and one Star Mart - they're not as common but they exist). I'd imagine it would do similar things in Auckland?
Star Marts I'll grant you, dairies I'd be doubtful of - Google Maps tends to be a lot dodgier the smaller/more local the store. Besides, unless things have changed a lot in the past year, smartphones still aren't *that* common in NZ. If they had that free WiFi everyone's wishing for....in a few years, maybe. And it still does sound like there's a call for a convenience type-store in that particular location.
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*if people could find it*
Auckland City Council, meet the widely known phenomena of the “Kiosk”
http://www.prestigekiosks.com/information.php?info_id=5
they sell newspapers, ciggies, lollies, chippies, postcards and stamps – all that sort of stuff that the punters want, AND they can be moved if they don’t work out.
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Sacha, in reply to
smartphones still aren't *that* common in NZ
I suspect they'll be the norm amongst our relatively wealthy rugby tourists ..
postcards and stamps
.. though maybe not all of them.
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People (by which I mean a sample set made up of me) still like to send postcards.
Mind you, I like writing letters when I am on holiday as well. Half the fun is finding the local post office.
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nzMM,
Regards the K rd over-bridge, I saw it Saturday night for the first time as well. Seriously! What the hell!! Why would any architect take that view from us.? Architecture 101, lesson 1 should definitely be: Don't obscured great views for no reason?
The people who conspired to steal such a beautiful vista from the people of Auckland should be tarred and feathered and made to walk the length of K-rd so people can subject them to the humiliation they deserve.
2 steps forward, one step back... hopefully this can be remedied sooner rather than later.
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+1 on the service at Wynyard. The Fishmarket guys are trying to cope but struggling, they've gone from having no business because the road was viturally blocked off while the work was going on to being absolutley inundated now. Hope they can get up to speed.
The queues in the Gelato shop were horrendous when we were down there, where's Mr Whippy when you need him.
Also those stainless steel sea eggs and the rusty iron shell in the playground look fantastic but they were hot to the touch on a sunny late winter's day. In Summer someone will get burnt on those. Many playgrounds have removed the old stainless steel slides for exactly that reason.
The kids loved rolling down the grassy hill and paddling in the pond under the *clothesline* scuplture.
The tram has absolutely got to get extended to Britomart as soon as possible or it runs the very serious risk of being a white elephant.
Great to have a space on the CBD waterfront suitable for families.
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Sacha, in reply to
Regards the K rd over-bridge
AKT blog has a post with photos of the problems - which apparently include lack of basic protection from rain, something repeated across Auckland's transport network that should be a source of shame for designers. Compare with the earlier artful renderings.
Inevitably, there's a Bookface page.
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BenWilson, in reply to
Google Maps tends to be a lot dodgier the smaller/more local the store.
For sure. I just searched for "dairy" on my phone and it came up with one that's 2 km away, missing the 3 that are much closer. Tried "convenience store", and it got about 10 hits in the CBD, none of them vaguely close to the Wynyard Quarter. Which, incidentally is not marked on Google as having a pedestrian bridge, so if people wanted to use Navigation to get to them, they would be doing the old scenic route.
I've also noticed that it's not much good at finding cheap places to eat. Anyone who has gone to the trouble of making sure they're in Google is likely to be expensive.
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