Source: Radio New Zealand
Nitro is a triple-distilled vodka beverage formulated with guarana. RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly
At least half a dozen Christchurch bottle stores have agreed to stop selling a vodka-infused guarana RTD in an effort to get or renew their liquor licences – the result of a campaign its manufacturer feels was driven by a “personally-motivated vendetta” against their product.
The alcohol shops have agreed to or suggested the condition during their applications to the Christchurch District Licensing Committee since 2022.
It prompted the owner of Nitro Vodka, National Brands, to take legal action, claiming the drink was being unfairly targeted. However, Justice Rob Osborne ruled the licensing committee was within its rights to grant liquor licences with the ‘no-Nitro’ condition.
Paul McMahon of Community Action on Youth and Drugs Otautahi, who championed the case against Nitro, said he wanted alcohol-and-caffeine-mixed drinks – not just Nitro – banned in New Zealand.
National Brands director Steve Shaw says that, as a Linwood Community Board member and a member of Christchurch Council, McMahon should be “fair and impartial”, but Shaw felt McMahon “chose a very biased, anti-competitive and a personally motivated vendetta against Nitro”.
McMahon told Checkpoint on Wednesday Nitro was particularly popular with young men, about university age.
He said the company’s social-marketing campaign targeted this demographic, and was associated with binge and harmful drinking.
“In my community, I’ve got footage of people drinking it in the middle of the day, outside bottle stores. One guy chugging some and throwing up out the back of one.
“It’s really associated with binge drinking, excessive and harmful drinking.”
Shaw took exception to McMahon’s comments Nitro was the “most well-distributed and well-promoted product”, as similar products like Smirnoff and KGB had been around “a lot longer, are owned by massive multi-national companies and have the largest distribution models in the country”.
“The marketing of Nitro is no different than many brands,” Shaw said to RNZ on Thursday.
“Nitro has not had a single complaint from Advertising Standards Authority complaint in since 2021. Even then, the complaints prior to 2021 were from anti-alcohol campaigners and not once from a normal member of the public.”
McMahon said mixing caffeine and alcohol is generally a bad idea.
“Mixing caffeine – a stimulant – and alcohol together elevates all the risks associated with alcohol. Apart from being harder on your nervous system, it also impairs judgement further and it impairs the perception of intoxication.
“It makes poor decisions more likely in every respect, and so it also makes people more likely to stay up longer and drink more,” he said. “Think of all the worst things about excessive and inappropriate use of alcohol, and compound those.”
“McMahon talks of harm from caffeine, but not once in any hearing or at any stage has [McMahon] provided any evidence of his made-up claims,” Shaw said.
While Nitro was legal, McMahon said the local district licensing committees retained broad statutory powers to tailor licensing conditions to control alcohol-related harm, which could include banning specific products.
“The reason for that is that the purpose of the act is to reduce harm from alcohol. There’s no, like, prior right to sell alcohol.
“The whole basis of the Sale and Supply Alcohol Act is that it’s a product that is different and only the act confers the right to sell alcohol, it’s not like a normal product.”
“McMahon should consider factual evidence-based criteria, before threatening hard-working, privately-owned liquor stores and manipulating the law to ban a legal alcohol beverage,” Shaw said. “Particularly as Nitro is no different than Smirnoff, KGB or at least six other products, with exactly the same guarana and alcohol content.”
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/02/06/christchurch-bottle-stores-ban-the-sale-of-popular-drink-nitro-to-renew-licenses/