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Wine to-go or wine must go? That is the question on a few South African minds at the moment.

At least ever since BP and Pick n Pay Express in Johannesberg was awarded a Grocer’s Licence in June this year allowing them to sell wine, which is the first time in the country that a fuel provider has been granted one.

The Southern African Alcohol Policy Alliance (SAAPA) are less than impressed, and are calling for an immediate halt in issuing liquor licences to retailers at petrol stations.

SAAPA’s director, Maurice Smithers, is worried that the planned rollout of this licence to other petrol stations across the country in the coming months will cause major problems.

This arrangement hasn’t taken hold in the Western Cape yet, but there are plans for it to happen soon, along with door-to-door wine deliveries through BP’s partnership with food delivery apps, per BusinessTech.

The body notes that the National Liquor Policy Act of 2016 recommends that petrol stations should not be awarded liquor licences and that the new licence grants very clearly go against this act.

Likewise with the Liquor Amendment Bill of 2016, which states something similar about not allowing licences for such premises.

The reason for all the backlash against liquor sales being allowed at petrol stations has a lot to do with road safety:

Smithers said that there is a real risk that allowing petrol stations to sell alcohol is also going to lead to an increase in drunk driving.

“It will serve to undermine the efforts of the Department of Transport to reduce alcohol-related traffic incidents through the Road Traffic Amendment Bill, which is currently being considered by parliament.”

South Africans Against Drunk Driving (SADD) have also created a petition on change.org, asking the government to reverse the decision:

Here’s more from the founder of SADD, Caro Smit, via Cape Talk:

“International research certainly shows that stopping alcohol sales within petrol stations really does make a difference to bring down drink driving and crashes.

“If you look at first-world countries. If you look at where they’ve brought down their crash statistics dramatically, one of the first things they did was stopping the sale of alcohol at petrol stations.

“Our alcohol abuse is so high in South Africa, we actually need to be restricting the places that sell alcohol, not actually increasing it.

Via EWN, Sue Goldstein from the Medical Research Council at Wits University also recognised that the sale of liquor at garages could result in a major step backwards:

“Government spends R260 billion on alcohol-related harm and some of the fatal crashes are caused by drunk driving.”

The risk that liquor licences at petrol stations might pose for road safety is a problem that deserves close scrutiny.

Judging by the reaction to the alcohol sales bans, though, Saffas may not take too kindly to any efforts to curb future sales.

[sources:businesstech&capetalk&ewn]