Goon bags may have firmly cemented their place as a quintessential staple of Australian culture, but the Fruity Lexia and Tawny Port boxed varieties are been pulled off the shelves in one Aussie town.
The town of Geraldton, which is a five hour drive from Perth, has enforced a five day ban of two of the most popular wine casks in a move to stop the spike in booze-fuelled violence.
The new rules stipulate that there must be a minimum price of $15 cask for all other 4 litre cask wines and people will be limited to being able to buy one 2L cask wine per day.
The ban is set to be trialled for five days, before a decision is made on whether Fruity Lexia and Tawny Port boxed wines will be allowed to be sold in the town.
Geraldton police station officer-in-charge acting Sen. Sgt Stuart Gerreyn has addressed the controversial decision.
“We have had an increase in violence and anti-social behaviour along the foreshore, particularly near the cinemas and the basketball court,” he told the Geraldton Guardian.
“There is no particular day of the week or time of day when this is happening, it is just basically from when the bottle shops open to when it gets dark. People are buying their goon bags, drinking them and going back and buying another one.”
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“Other regions have their own issues with alcohol consumption in public places, but we would like to try get on top of it before it becomes a major issue for us.”
Five day goon ban in #geraldton crazy times pic.twitter.com/SijadItjJY
— Will Chegwidden (@willchegwidden) March 31, 2022
The rules kicked in at 1pm yesterday and will run through until 12am on Tuesday, 5th March. The notice, which has been posted in the window of bottle shops in the town, says that tourist will receive an exception and will still be able to buy 4L Fruity Lexia and Tawny Port goon bags.
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