After the resumption of alcohol sales, merchants and customers are happy but also worried

Impatient New Caledonian wine lovers on Monday. Queues formed outside wine merchants before the regulatory opening time, anyway.This is a hangout for drunks!” A passer-by in front of a store in Noumea said with a smile. The group made some customers feel uneasy: “cBut it’s still not complete bliss. In these times, we would prefer to come calmly like normal to pick up our order and look around the store, but we have to hurry, someone.”

Crowds must also be managed by businesses. At some vintners, security guards are tasked with managing queues and slowly ushering customers in. But neither the restrictions nor the regulatory obligations seem to have dampened their enthusiasm for reopening.”We were warned early on This still corresponds to perfectly correct and non-abusive daily consumption, thinks Pierre Gayraud, cellar manager. so We are happy to be open and I think it is good for the customers, for our staff who have been partially unemployed for a few weeks and for us, otherwise, without the activity, we would have been doomed.

Some customers are less cooperative, especially with regard to the limits on authorized purchase quantities. For alcohol with a strength below 22°, such as beer and wine, a maximum of 2 liters, and for strong alcohol, a maximum of 1 liter … Not enough for this customer who has already declared, “JayI’m going to go to other areas and see if we can get more, if not computerized, I mean, if we get there, ‘Ah no! You’ve already taken it once. Another customer had to choose between whiskey for him and wine for his wife. He took the whiskey, but he admitted that “I have a plan B.” To him, anyway, these restrictions mean nothing.”For the average person who invites friends over I’m not going to take them out for a bottle of wine on the weekend, you come, there are 12 of you, you share this! How stupid! I say people who consume in moderation will be punished.”

However, the reopening of alcohol sales has not sparked enthusiasm everywhere. For example, in the VKP region (Voh koné Pouembo in the northern province), a false start in June led to tragic burns.Banned for a long time Remember a resident of Punbo, They opened it up over a weekend, nobody understood anything, the town hall closed, and now it’s reopened…” The first attempt at a high commission was ultimately aborted by municipal decree. The town halls of Koné and Pouembo.

This is a precedent that pushes professionals to have a certain flexibility. Therefore, Yoran Leherle, deputy manager of a large surface company, warns: “and It won’t cause any major problems and I think we’ll be open for three weeks as planned. After that, there really could be some initiatives at the city hall level or other institutional level… like the Northern Province. We’ll make do with it.”

The city hall said it was relying on consumers’ common sense and waiting until the end of the week to make a decision.