Tenacity is normally a virtue. But when that tenacity is in pursuit of the kind of thing that has gotten you in trouble before, it is just a bit less virtuous. The tenacious toddler’s pursuit of a forbidden cookie is cute at first, but it gets annoying pretty quickly.

Wellington’s police are nothing if not tenacious on the alcohol front. But it seems they just cannot cop a break.

Back in March, the Alcohol Regulatory and Licensing Authority effectively told the police that they needed to stop extorting “voluntary” licence conditions from bottleshops.

Police are meant to report to the District Licensing Committee on licence applications and renewals. But the Authority, on appeal, worried that police had been objecting to licence renewals simply because the licensee had not agreed to conditions the police sought to impose.

Threatening to drag applicants through the appeals process if they did not agree to the police’s preferred licence conditions looked to be an abuse of the police’s statutory reporting role.

The Authority warned that the practice risked creating the impression that they were usurping the powers of the District Licensing Committee.

Having that route blocked, the police seem to have found a new one.

This week’s Dominion Post reported that the police have been canvassing Aro Valley, warning residents that a new bottle shop there could lead to higher crime. They also provided how-to guides for residents, encouraging them to object to the bottle shop’s licence.

The Authority chided the police for pressuring licensees directly. It will be interesting to see whether this new tactic winds up as part of another appeal to the Authority.

You might say that providing people with information about how to make submissions is a healthy part of the democratic process. But when it is done on the public dime, by the police, with template letters whose only options are objections to the licence, it looks a little less healthy. If someone in the neighbourhood welcomed a shorter walk to a bottleshop, the template does not provide an option for saying so.

The police have gone past the cute phase here. The Authority’s deserved sharp critique of police behaviour seems to have changed police tactics rather than their aims. Perhaps a time-out is in order.