I have never lived through prohibition but there were two things I learned from that time period. One, it seemed like a dumb law that only fueled the power of organized crime and two, people are going to find a way to drink.
In Coromandel, New Zealand, in order to control over drinking during New Year’s, the town placed a temporary ban on drinking and would impose a $180 fine if caught.
Seeing a local waterway being in low tide, a bunch of Kiwis had an idea to build a small sand island, planted a picnic table on it, brought a cooler full of beer and joked they were in “international waters.
According to the BBC, the local police took a Ron Burgundy approach to this form of engineering in that they weren’t mad, but thought it was amazing.
“That’s creative thinking – if I had known [about it] I probably would have joined them,” said local police commander Inspector John Kelly when told about the sand island.
The way it sounded, not too many people took this ban seriously and really just caused police to deal with more issues than they typically would for New Year’s. Where instead of dealing with people who had a little too much, they had to deal with everyone drinking. So just like prohibition in the United States, it didn’t really work in New Zealand.
[BBC/Photo: David Saunders]
