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Cape Town - Close to 200 licensed tavern owners from the Western Cape – including Cape Town and surrounds, Knysna, Mossel Bay and Beaufort West, signed a pledge to abide by a Code of Practice drafted by the Industry Association for Responsible Alcohol Use (ARA).
The code aims to promote the responsible sale of alcoholic beverages by encouraging taverners to refuse the sale of alcohol to underage minors, pregnant women, and those patrons who are already visibly intoxicated.
The pledges were signed at a Taverners’ Imbizo initiated and hosted by ARA, in partnership with the South African Leisure Tourism & Hospitality Association (Saltha), at Spier Wine Estate near Stellenbosch.
“This is the fifth of a series of nine nationwide imbizos that will run until April 2015 – one in every province,” said ARA CEO Dr Osborn Mahanjana. “Part of the reason why we are running these imbizos is because we realise no single player can solve the problem of alcohol abuse. Only partnership will work.”
The Western Cape imbizo created a platform for the regional tavern owners to discuss issues of responsible alcohol selling, liquor licensing, and the problems of alcohol abuse with relevant stakeholders such as police commissioner lieutenant-general Arno Lamoer, Western Cape Liquor Authority deputy director Philip Prinsloo, Foundation for Alcohol Related Research (Farr) chairperson Leana Olivier and Cape Town mayoral council member of City Health, Siyabulela Mamkeli, among others.
“It comes back to you – the liquor industry - to comply,” said lieutenant-general Lamoer in his address to the tavern owners. “We can’t expect the police to police everything that is going on in society. Let’s stand up and do the right thing and take ownership and responsibility.”
Keynote speaker Conrad Sidego, the mayor of Stellenbosch, noted the double sided coin of the event taking place in the heart of the winelands.
“Alcohol is such an important part of the economy of this world, yet the flip side of the coin is the topic we are talking about today. You could very easily throw away the baby with the bath water,” he said.
He highlighted the importance of education and teaching people values in the fight against alcohol abuse, as opposed to mere policing and only dealing with the symptoms.
“Do we have to hide the wine from grown-ups? These measures we are talking about might be helpful and will help regulate behaviour. But is this the ultimate? We don’t have a liquor problem, we have a relationship problem - a value problem. We need to start teaching people values again.”
Monwabisi Klaas, a tavern owner from Gugulethu in Cape Town, who signed the pledge for responsible selling, said “we knew that alcohol had negative effects, but we did not know how bad the statistics were".
Another attendee, Anele Bizwapa, said “my favourite quote that I heard today was that ‘you can dodge your responsibilities, but you cannot dodge the consequences of dodging your responsibilities'.”
In keeping with the message of co-regulation and taking ownership of the issues, Dr Mahanjana said “apart from interventions such as the Imbizos, the ARA is developing a strict marketing Code of Commercial Communication that will be released to the public to inform them on what the alcohol marketing regulations are".
"Accordingly, we (the ARA) will give the public a reporting platform so that they can also play a part in co-regulating and give active feedback,” said Mahanjana.
The Code of Commercial Communication will be released in the near future.
From the left: ARA CEO Dr Osborn Mahanjana, Saltha Western Cape chairperson Esme Maart, Vuyisila Shicani, a tavern owner from Philippi in Cape Town and Stellenbosch mayor Conrad Sidego. (Source: ARA)
