A LIQUOR industry head has issued an impassioned call to the state government to wind back drinking laws he says have created a nanny state where ordinary people are persecuted for having a good time.

In what he calls ''a broad philosophical piece'', the president of the NSW branch of Australian Hotels Association, Scott Leach, has lampooned the City of Sydney council and the state and federal governments for rules that provide ''a namby pamby protectionist approach to life''.

Illustration: Cathy Wilcox

A ban on selling shots of liquor after midnight had ''resulted in our teenagers leaving our shores to enjoy the fun and freedom in other countries … revelling at full moon parties in Thailand and backpackers are carousing down the rivers of Laos''.

''Control freaks'' restricting access to liquor had taken charge to the point where ''persecution of those having a good time is the hallmark of the new Australian way of life'', he said in his column in the AHA's latest newsletter. Tourists were ''returning to their homelands with graphic accounts of all the controls and regulations in our country and their stories are doing nothing more than repelling future tourists''.