A GP has slammed a new breed of “heavily armed” and “menacing” auxiliary police that have been drafted to patrol liquor stores in the NT as part of the territory’s reforms to tackle alcohol-related violence.

Katherine GP Dr Peter Spafford says the auxiliary police officers, armed with tasers, handguns and truncheons, stand outside the stores and grill queues of potential customers.

“They stand there, two or three heavily armed, looming over potential customers and insinuating that everyone is a grog runner,” he writes in a letter to the Katherine Times, in which he dubs the officers the Katherine Grog Busters (KGB).

“I find it offensive as a law-abiding citizen of legal age. I go to a legal retailer, selling a legal product, from legal manufacturers, and I am treated like I am doing something wrong.