"Homebrewer" busted for selling spirits

[mattd2]

Just saw this in the Herald today:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=1... 

So the police won't believe the you're just "really popular" as a reason why you are brewing 200+ litre batches every other week!

[Peter Smith]

makes me wonder about legality of case swaps....   but I guess 1 for 1 is not supply its swapping

and clearly this guy was supplementing the pension, selling to 15 year olds is not on though

there are a lot of backyard still ops in akl as well...  like this

[Nathan Murrell]

A guy in Hastings was done a couple years ago after Police found out about his still and sales...a very young officer was sent in to do a purchasein plain clothes.

I think doing organised case swaps through a club or similar shouldn't raise any issues.

[Dave W]

Totally illegal, as is every single home brew contest in New Zealand.

the police and Customs just turn a blind eye to it on a "don't ask don't tell" kind of deal.

[mattd2]

I guess it is about the intent - HB comp, case swap, etc. all that is happening is sharing our homebrew. What they want to stop is people running commercial operations without the proper checks and balances (and avoiding taxes of coarse!)

[Alice Dee]

Bingo, "for personal use only", legally interpreted as you and the usual residents of your dwelling.

Can't even give your mate a beer to try.

But as it is said, unless you are selling it then this is lenient.

People who sell it should get nailed, or, they will bugger it up for everyone else.