Abstract
Aims: This study aimed to explore the relationship between a 00:00 liquor restriction, introduced on 1 July 2016, and alcohol-related harm by examining its impact on serious assault numbers during high-alcohol hours (20:00–6:00 Friday and Saturday night), from 1 January 2009 to 30 June 2018. Methods: Two types of locations only impacted by the liquor restriction were identified: designated safe night precincts (SNPs) and other local government areas (LGAs). A times series autoregressive integrated moving average analysis was used to estimate the influence of liquor restrictions on police-recorded serious assaults in the two years following the policy introduction, for SNPs and LGAs separately. Results: Contrarily to our predictions, monthly police-recorded serious assaults did not significantly change within SNPs or LGAs following the introduction of liquor restrictions. Conclusion: The implementation of the Queensland liquor restriction did not result in a clear, unique reduction in serious assault trends. Further investigation should consider the impact of liquor restrictions in conjunction with other policy changes as public perception of restrictions and their cumulative impact may produce varied outcomes.
Highlights
Alcohol-related harm in night-time entertainment precincts (NEPs) is a major preventable burden on the community [1]
safe night precincts (SNPs) with Venues Only Affected by Liquor Restrictions
The analysis found no significant change in the number of serious assaults per month after the introduction of liquor restrictions during HAH in SNPs that were not affected by restrictions on trading hours (ARIMA(0,0,1), Q = 30.93, p = 0.85; Figure 1)
Summary
Alcohol-related harm in night-time entertainment precincts (NEPs) is a major preventable burden on the community [1]. NEPs are high-risk areas defined by a cluster of on-licence venues, including pubs, bars, and nightclubs [2]. These areas are often identified as ‘hotspots’ for violence [3,4,5] due to high levels of intoxication [6] and an atmosphere of permissiveness and anonymity [7]. One particular alcohol restriction that has become popular among policy makers despite a lack of empirical evidence [12] is the ban of shots after a certain time of night (e.g., 22:00 [11,13], 00:00 [14,15], 1:00 [16], or 4:00 [17])
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