Oppose the Auckland City Council Draft Liquor Licensing Policy
I've joined a Facebook group with the same title as this blog post. If you use Facebook and find this useful, please join it here also: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=285103490054. If you are keen to make a submission on this, the URL with the form to make an online submission is at: http://www.aucklandcity.govt.nz/auckland/introduction/safer/accords/current.asp
The Auckland City Council has released its Draft Liquor Licensing Policy.
THIS POLICY COULD SERIOUSLY AFFECT YOUR BUSINESS, CAREER AND YOUR RIGHTS TO CONSUME ALCOHOL!!!
The Policy proposes dividing Auckland City into three sectors with different licensing hours for each. These are for all On-Licences; restaurant, bar and entertainment.
- Auckland CBD:
Hours 7am till 1am
Can be extended to 3am if
- premise has a clean record
- ‘trained’ security staff on from 11pm – 4am; 1 per 50 patrons
- all staff after 1am are NZQA qualified responsible servers
Can be extended to 24 hours if in addition to the above
- CCTV cameras are in place
- 'one-way door' from 4am
- free food from 3am
- no one person purchases over 4 drinks at a time from 3am
- Entertainment Precincts:
These are Ponsonby Rd, Parnell Road, Newmarket, Mt Eden Village, Kingsland Village and Mission Bay ONLY.
Hours 7am to 1am
Can be extended to 3am if
- the premise has a clean record
- ‘trained’ security staff on from 11pm – 4am; 1 per 50 patrons
- all staff after 1am are NZQA qualified responsible server
- 'one-way door' from 2am
- Everywhere else:
Hours 7am to 11pm
Can be extended to 12pm if
- the premise has a clean record
- ‘trained’ security staff on from 10pm – 1am; 1 per 50 patrons
- all staff after 11pm are NZQA qualified responsible server
All Off Licenses including supermarkets will have a 10pm closing time.
We urge you to make a submission on the policy.
The submission form is attached or you can submit on line at
http://www.aucklandcity.govt.nz/council/documents/liquor/say.asp#on
these must be into the Council by 7 October.
Some issues to think about and consider including in your submission include:
How this will financially impact on your business; will the business value be negatively impacted ?
How this will affect your staff with regards to a loss of jobs if you have a drop in hours?
Why are we doing this now with the Super City about to form and the Law Commission about to report back on reform of the Sale of Liquor Act?
What is the problem they are trying to solve with this Policy and will these measures solve it?
How will this affect the Rugby World Cup?
The Public enjoy access to neighbourhood bars and restaurants without having to travel to the city for a night out?
How have the entertainment precincts been determined? Why are they so limited? What about other areas such as the top of Symonds St/Khyber Pass area, Grey Lynn, Pt Chevalier, Onehunga, Otahuhu, Panmure/Mt Wellington, St Heliers etc to name a few?
70% of alcohol consumed is off licensed premises. Evidence shows that 82 % of alcohol related offending is related to off licence consumption (Police National Alcohol Assessment April 2009).
Driving drinkers out of the suburban bars at 11pm will either compel them to drink in unsupervised areas creating more alcohol related harm or to travel into the CBD which creates issues around migratory drinking and drink driving.
The Sale of Liquor Act is already in place to promote safe alcohol consumption, dictate the host responsibilities of Licensees, and provide heavy penalties to those who do not comply.
There is no mention of hours for outdoor areas. The Auckland City Council Street Trading Policy refers to this policy for hours.
How a 'one-way door' at 2am in Entertainment Precincts or 4am in the CBD would affect your business?
The cost of training all staff to NZQA qualified server standard, especially given the transient nature of our staff.
Door security requirements will be great for security contracting firms but cost prohibitive for venues.
How much it would cost you to provide 'free food' if you are open after 3am. What does 'free food' mean?
Again we urge you to make a submission and to tick the first box that indicates you would like to appear before the Council Committee. It is imperative that we have as many people as possible representing the industry appear to speak with the Council if we are to change this proposal.
If you have any questions, would like a model submission to work from, or help with writing a submission, please call Sara Tucker at HANZ on 0800 500 503.
Alcohol is a factor in less than a third of road accidents, and casualties have declined from 328 in 1986 to 128 in 2007
(All information listed here is from the Hospitality Association of New Zealand HANZ)
Posted by tomachi on September 24th, 2009 filed in Politics