PARTY PILL BAN MEANS LOCAL STORE'S CLOSURE

Three Invercargill men are out of a job following the Government's
announcement that BZP-based party pills will be banned from April 1.

Staff members at party pill shop Jordy's, in Don St, yesterday said
the shop would close as a result of the BZP ban announcement.

The BZP pills made up between 60 and 80 percent of the shop's income
and it was not viable to stay open, they said.

"This is putting three of us out of a job in invercargill. It's crap,
we have been out looking for jobs and it's not that easy," one of the
men said.

Though they knew the ban was inevitable, the two weeks' notice was
insufficient to find new jobs, they said.

Customers yesterday began stocking up on the pills, which were selling
at a reduced price at Jordy's, with one man buying $165 worth, they
said.

Jerry Soper, who has worked at Jordy's for about a year, said he would
miss the social side of the job and dealing with interesting
customers, especially seeing them before and after buying the pills.

"They come in to buy pills at about 8pm and are normal and they come
back at about 1am and their eyes are all dilated and they are talking
at 100 miles an hour," he said.

The banning of BZP would intensify the underground market of the pills
"tenfold", he believed.

The owner of Invercargill's Pillz & Thrillz in Dee St, Ann Kincaid,
said the Government's ban on BZP-based pills was shortsighted and
hypoctritical, given that thousands died every year in New Zealand
from alcohol and tobacco use.

"Since BZP has been on the market there hasn't been one direct death,"
she said.

Ms Kincaid's shop would stay open and continue to sell novelty gifts
and party pills that were not BZP-based -- and a new batch of party
pills was waiting to come on to the market when BZP was outlawed, she
said.

"The distributors are ready to go." A staffer at Pillz & Thrillz said
he had sampled some of the new pills that will come on to the market
and he said they produced a "nice wave, nothing too intense".