More Food-Nazi's Desperately Needed

Bankruptcy Alley a 'shocking commentary' on NZ--Debt Commissioner

Matthew Theunissen is a reporter for the Herald on Sunday. (This piece documents another attempt by the Commentariat--of which we are an important part--to argue for more state intrusion to protect people from themselves.  Our reporters are on task and remain zealously committed to seeing it done.  At the Herald, we are proud to be making a difference.)

Liam Joyce and Alex Wood with their lunch from Burger Fuel, Lincoln Road. Photo / Michael Craig.  Smart Kiwis Avoiding the Debt Trap of Fine Dining.

A NZ Debt Commissioner has dubbed a 3km stretch of road featuring more than 30 expensive fine dining restaurants as  "Bankruptcy Alley".  In Central Auckland, the Viaduct precinct, Vulcan Lane and O'Connell Street offers an astonishing 33 high priced restaurants, 30 of which will force patrons into even more credit card debt, such is the exorbitant cost of their meals.  The remaining three have only two items on the menu,  so the bankruptcy risk is not as great.

Debt Commissioner, David Impecunious described it as a "shocking commentary on our exorbitant, gratuitously wasteful, first-world country".  "I don't think it would be going too far to call it Bankruptcy Alley - call it what it is. If it's going to be contributing to people's increased use of credit card debt, it's going to cause more financial stress, leading to more heart attacks and strokes--and even suicides  Yes, let's call it for what it is."

He said it was compounding an environment where being in debt was the norm.
  "If Mr or Mrs Average has spent the last eight hours at work and have had a really hard day, it becomes so much easier to think you need to treat yourself.  Junk food doesn't cut it.  You think you need something special in order to feel special and properly rewarded for your hard graft.  So you are tempted to go down Bankruptcy Alley, and before you know it you have spent six to seven hundred dollars on a bunch of flippery.  Miniscule portions, gaudied up like a prostitutes. Multiple courses, each ripping an arm and a leg off the body-fiscal.  And then the overpriced wine.  French plonk selling for hundreds of dollars a bottle. You walk out of there with the sickening realisation that within twenty four hours all that you have eaten will be in the sewer, but the debt, lumbered with exorbitant credit card interest, will bite for months to come."

The Debt Commissioner points out that the resulting depression almost always drives people into more expensive nights out as they look to lighten their burdens.  "It's the most insidious thing.  Like a cancer, really.  Eating away at so many people (no pun intended)." 

Impecunious- based at the Treasury's secret Auckland research and detection centre- said the ease with which fine dining restaurants could be opened up needed to be examined and perhaps they should be treated the same as casinos.  "They amount to about the same quantum of financial destruction," he claimed.  "We're starting to do good things with tobacco in terms of taxing it at a higher rate and advertising. We're also starting to do good things with alcohol controls, but currently it's a big free-for-all with fine-dining."

Auckland Central local board chairwoman Vanessa Neanderthal was stunned by the number of fine-dining outlets in her neighbourhood.  "Unfortunately, there's nothing we can do about it because anyone is able to submit a resource consent and if they tick all the boxes then they can open. But it's a problem, that's for sure.

"I would like there to be [more regulations] but I'm not sure how that would work. Unfortunately a lot of families are losing their ability to actually cook meals because they're too stressed with demanding jobs.  Both are working 24/7 so it's an issue in this day and age."

James Clark with his lunch from KFC, Lincoln Road. Eating to be Debt Free. Photo / Michael Craig

For labourer James Clark, who was eating a KFC lunch in his car, it's just easier to grab a bite at one of the plentiful takeaway outlets than to make lunch himself - and it's cheap.  Luckily he is not seduced by fine dining.  He explains that he has never been tempted by such extravagance, and feels sorry for people who are.  "They need protecting," he said.  Speaking of his KFC lunch, he said, "You get three pieces of chicken, a lot of chips and a drink for $5 and that's a pretty round meal for me.

"For me it's about money...but I'm going to sweat it out in a few hours anyway, and I bike to and from work as well.  But I sure feel sorry for those people tricked into overspending at a restaurant and getting into debt as a result.  They need to be more careful of their money, but it's hard when restaurants tempt you that way.  There should be laws against them."

Central Auckland couple Liam Joyce and Alex Wood said going to a high end dining outlet might be thought a rare treat, but the sheer number of them in downtown Auckland was just too tempting.  "We shouldn't, but what can you do.  We have spent five thousand dollars on meals last month alone--and that was only seven restaurant outings." He was dreading the arrival of the credit card bill.  "I have no willpower whatsoever.  When I smell all those food flavours in the Viaduct precinct at night, I can't rest until I have gorged myself into more debt.  I feel so guilty afterwards." 

Researchers from the universities of Auckland, Otago and Oxford this week released a study which found that some 2,400 suicides a year could be prevented by putting a 50 per cent tax on fine dining restaurant meals.  The Debt Commissioner was scathing.  "That's would be just a beginning," he said.  "There should be no more than one fine dining restaurant per 50,000 people.  And the license to operate it should run to the millions per year."  The quality of life for those tempted by fine dining would improve substantially.  As fine dining restaurant meals were priced off the market debt levels of easily led consumers would become far more manageable.