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11 March 2019 by Matthew Jones

Easter and ANZAC Day Trading Hours 2019

Good Friday – 19 April 2019

Trading hours and conditions for all licensed premises in Queensland are set out below.

Thursday Night (Good Friday Eve): all premises must cease service at 12 midnight. The 30 minute grace period for consumption of drinks on the premises still applies.

Good Friday up to Midnight: if you do not normally serve meals on the premises, you will be able to enjoy a day off.

Premises offering a meals service may open at the usual time on Good Friday, but liquor may only be sold in association with a meal prepared on the premises and served in a part of the premises ordinarily set aside for dining.

Midnight on Good Friday onwards: normal trading resumes. Premises with extended trading hours approval may open at midnight and trade under their normal conditions until the approved closing time.

Normal trading hours and conditions apply for the remainder of the Easter period.

ANZAC-square-brisbane-150

ANZAC Day – 25 April 2019

All licensed premises must cease liquor service at 12 midnight on 24 April, with the usual 30 minute grace period. Gaming must also cease at midnight.

Up to 1 pm on ANZAC day liquor may be sold in association with a meal, prepared on the premises and served in a part of the premises ordinarily set aside for dining. No takeaway liquor may be sold before 1 pm on ANZAC day.

RSL clubs and licensed premises catering for ANZAC day services or RSL functions can commence trading from 5 am on ANZAC day, subject to certain conditions. Please see the OLGR Factsheet for full details.

If your require a temporary extended hours permit for Anzac Day you must lodge the application at least 21 days in advance.

Two-up Legal on ANZAC Day

Although in the past games of Two-up have been openly conducted in RSL clubs on ANZAC Day, with the implicit cooperation of police, the games were technically illegal. However, amendments to the Charitable and Non-Profit Gaming Act have legalised the playing of Two-up on ANZAC day in RSL clubs.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: compliance, Extended Hours, restaurant

8 May 2015 by Matthew Jones

Drink Pre-Loading – Survey Results

I recently attended a very informative presentation by A/Inspector Corey Allen (Queensland Police Service) A/Prof Grant Devilly (Griffith University) on the results of a study of the effects of drink pre-loading in Fortitude Valley, the Gold Coast and Mackay. The survey of 3,201 people revealed a number of interesting facts and attitudes towards drink pre-loading, including the reason people do it and the effect it has on their levels of intoxication.

We’ve been provided with a PDF version of the slideshow from the presentation. You’ll find it makes interesting reading and if you have any questions, the contact details for both presenters are included.

SmartStart Preloading & A Safe Night Out

Filed Under: News Tagged With: advertising, DSP, Extended Hours, Liquor Accord, safe night out, taxis

4 July 2014 by Matthew Jones

Safe Night Out Amendments

The Queensland Parliament has now passed the Safe Night Out amendments, we have summarised the points of the bill below.

Amendments to the Criminal Code

  1. The introduction of the ‘coward punch’ offence.

The offence of ‘unlawful striking causing death’ is introduced by the Bill, carrying a maximum penalty of life imprisonment and defined as a death caused by the striking to a person on their head or neck. The distinction between this new offence and the other homicide offences is that it expressly precludes the element of intention from its definition; meaning that defences such as provocation are unavailable. Further, the offence disenables the offender from relying on other commonly available defences such as the defence of accident or that of the prevention of recurrent insult.

  1. Introducing stricter penalties for various offences

The ‘unlawful striking causing death’ offence also obliges the Court to order that an offender is sentenced to serve the lesser of 80% of their prison sentence or 15 years imprisonment before being permitted for apply for parole.

The offence relating to the serious assault against public officers is proposed, under the Bill, to mirror that of the assault against police officers. This means that where certain behaviours are exhibited in the process of the assault, such as biting or spitting at the officer, the offender is liable to a maximum prison sentence of 14 years rather than the previous 7 years.

  1. Aggravation

The Bill introduces a new Chapter 35A to address the circumstances of aggravation in relation to particular offences. This amendment changes the way in which offender’s are able to claim the defence of mistake of fact in relation to intoxication, and introduces presumptive factors in relation to adverse affectation from intoxicating substances.

In addition to these changes to the Criminal Code, the Bill also alters the sentencing process for liquor-associated offences under the Penalties and Sentences Act. The major change is that the voluntary intoxication of an offender is proposed to be removed from the court’s consideration of mitigating factors in determining sentences. The Court is also required to order offenders to complete community service orders when convicted of certain offences committed when intoxicated and in a public place.

Amendments to the Liquor Act

  1. A new definition of “unduly intoxicated”.

The contextual nature of the previous definition has gone, however it may be arguable that the behaviour is the result of the context in which it occurs. Importantly, the objective assessment (the ordinary person reference) has been removed. What we now have is a new concept – “noticeably affected”. Does this mean that if you can tell someone has been drinking (or has taken drugs) from their speech, balance, coordination or behaviour that they are UNDULY intoxicated?  This would seem to be correct, which implies a worryingly low standard; the definition looks more like one for “intoxicated” rather than “unduly intoxicated”.

  1. Introduction of “irresponsible” consumption of liquor.

The previous idea of “rapid or excessive” consumption of liquor will be replaced with the “irresponsible” consumption of liquor. This change applies to those parts of the legislation that regulate promotional practices.

  1. Changes to RAMPs

New sections will allow the commissioner to require a licensee to amend its RAMP and provide the amended plan for approval. The commissioner can do this for single licences, classes of licences, or for all licensees within a safe night precinct or restricted area. The Bill also expands the guideline-making power to expressly refer to stipulating how a licensee should comply with their responsibilities under the Act; an example given being a guideline for how licensees should determining whether a person is unduly intoxicated.

  1. Changes to restaurants

The changes relating to restaurant licences are quite ground-breaking; seeking to control these premises more closely in relation to compliance with their principal activity of serving meals. This is achieved by a combination of requirements applicable “throughout each trading day”. These include that most of the patrons for the business for that day must consume a meal; most of the licensed area of the premise is set up for dining; the kitchen must be open and ‘being used…for meal preparation’ for at least up to one hour before the end of the trading period; and that there are sufficient staff engaged in the preparation and service of meals.

Some of these matters are presently enforced through licence conditions (the second and third points). The others are new. It’s hard to know how effective the requirements will be in terms of the concern which has been expressed about restaurants operating as bars. “Trading day” and “trading period” are defined without reference to licensed trading hours, so a restaurant which opens for breakfast could take advantage of this patronage to satisfy the requirement that most of the patrons on a trading day consume a meal.

For some time it has been unclear whether the assessment of compliance with principal activity requirements should refer to the totality of trading or to a shorter period. For example, if a restaurant operated as a bar on a Friday afternoon for several hours, but on an overall assessment was primarily a meals business, it was arguably compliant. The new requirements will clarify that compliance is now assessed on daily basis; thus ending the speculation.

Interestingly, the present standard conditions on meals licences about the majority of the premises being set up for dining, and meals being available until 1 hour before close are stated not to apply during a function. This appears to have been omitted.

Last but by no means least is the limitation on access to extended trading hours for restaurants. The new provisions will only allow extended hours through until 1am. Restaurants with later trading will retain these through until 1 July 2015, after which they will revert to 1am.

We assume this provision will also apply to premises in the prepared food category.

  1. Introduction of “Nightclub” licences

Although at present a nightclub business can be established under more than one licence category, the amendments will remove the “entertainment” principal activity category from the commercial other subsidiary on premises licence set, and place it into a category of its own – simply called a nightclub licence. The curious requirement in the present Act that the licence only authorises the sale of liquor to a person who is being entertained has been removed, and replaced with the same general requirement which applies to the other on-premises categories, that the licence only authorises liquor sales if the business complies with its principal activity, which presumably means that if entertainment is provided most of the time the licensee will be compliant.

A further requirement is that toilets must now be provided within the licensed premises; and these licences cannot be obtained for a vehicle.

Nightclub licensees will still be able to operate without entertainment prior to 5pm, but will be required to comply during that period with the new restaurant rules.

  1. Adult Entertainment Permits

An application will require the consent of the local council, although the council may abstain. There is no stated recourse in the Bill if the Council rejects the proposal, meaning that it is likely that merits of judicial review of the Council’s decision is the relevant remedial option for unsuccessful applicants.

  1. Extended Trading Hours

The moratorium will end as promised on 31 August. After that it appears that applications will be considered according to the same procedure and considerations as have applied in the past. One change is that if an approval is given despite an objection from Police, the Commissioner is obliged to publish reasons for the decision on the OLGR web site for a period of 3 months.

  1. Public Safety and Amenity

There are a series of new provisions in a new Division 1A in Part 5 under the heading “Public Safety and Amenity”. They articulate a range of matters which the Commissioner must consider when deciding applications, and also clarify the ability to impose wide-ranging conditions on licences and other approvals such as when liquor can be sold, the type or quantity of liquor, responsible practices about service, supply and promotion of liquor, noise abatement measures, conditions about the structure of the premises and security arrangements.

  1. Responsible Service, Supply and Promotion and Preservation of Amenity

A new Division (Division 1AA) is to be inserted in Part 6. It seems to merely collect and expand upon a number of elements of the existing legislation rather than creating new obligations. For example, a licensee is presently under an obligation to maintain a safe environment in and around the licensed premises, as stated in Section 148A(4). Under the amendments the obligation will be stated in a Section 142ZZB and will be expanded to include a requirement that the licensee “take all reasonable steps to ensure the use of the premises does not adversely affect the amenity of the area”.

The new Division also includes expanded provisions about unacceptable practices and promotions, and the restrictions on advertising. It includes provisions allowing the Commissioner to issue “compliance notices” to licensees directing that, for example, a particular advertising practice cease. There are offence provisions for failing to comply with the notice.

  1. Mandatory ID Scanning

As expected, there are detailed provisions setting up the mandatory ID scanning system. All premises that trade after midnight in a safe night out precinct will be subject to the requirements. Other licences can be conditioned to require scanning, and would be thereafter subject to these provisions.

The requirement will be that a person must not be admitted to the premises unless their ID is scanned during the “regulated hours”, which are either the hours specified on a licence, or otherwise from 8pm through till close.

The scanning system, software, and database management system used by the licensee are all subject to detailed approval and licensing requirements, and there are extensive privacy provisions.

Banning notice information must be included in the database, and the scanning will detect a banned person, who must not be allowed entry to the premises.

The new provisions contemplate a licensee banning a person from their premises, and then sharing the ID information about the banned person with licensees linked by an ID scanning system.

  1. Safe Night Precincts

Safe Night Precincts replace the trialled Drink Safe Precincts, and will be expanded to numerous precincts around the State. Each precinct may be overseen by an incorporated association referred to as a “local board”. Licensees within the relevant precinct must become members of the local board.

The new provisions will also allow for the creation of a public safety consultative committee to advise the local board. The Commissioner will appoint the members of the consultative committee, which can include Police, Local Government, Department, Transport and Community group representatives, very much along the lines of the existing DSP committees.

The local board will have the power to terminate the membership of a particular licensee, and the provisions create a procedure for this to occur. It’s unclear what the effect of the membership being terminated is on the licensee moving forward.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: CCTV, DSP, Extended Hours, ID scanners, lockout, restaurant, RSA, safe night out, undue intoxication

3 June 2014 by David Grundy

Why Lockouts Don’t Work

The lockout laws introduced in Kings Cross in late February this year have been heralded as a success, with numbers of violent assaults dropping by half since the introduction of the laws. The changes in crime rates after adopting similar lockout laws for Newcastle, over a substantially longer period of 5 years, averaged at a 30% reduction in crime. While both of these areas seem to reflect positive changes in behaviour caused, or at least influenced, by restrictions on late-night trading of bars and hotels, the statistics lose much of their effect when viewed alongside the crime rates of other areas in New South Wales. In the same period in the similar-sized cities of Penrith, Wollongong, Sutherland Shire and Gosford, similar or greater reductions in crime rates were recorded, despite the absence of any similar lockout provisions for liquor establishments; suggesting lockouts don’t work as the provisions in Newcastle had little effect in bringing down the rates of violent crimes.

With little demonstrable direct impact on the rates of violent behaviour, the negative effects of the lockout laws may outweigh the supposed benefits that they bring. The economic impact of reduced trading hours is a cause of concern for many business owners and the reduced activity of Sydney’s iconic nightlife precincts threatens the city’s tourism sector.

Further issues with the lockout provisions could be that rather than promoting responsible drinking habits, the restrictions encourage patrons to drink more in a shorter time period, or simply travel to locations unaffected by the legislation. NSW Assistant Commissioner Mark Murdoch admitted to the ABC that the new rules could “just move the crowds and violence elsewhere” . Peter Miller, Principal Research Fellow at Deakin University, also acknowledged the potential for the implementation of restrictions in some areas to simply move problems to other areas, which may not be as well-equipped to deal with them.

Patrons have regularly been shown to travel across the Queensland border for the increased trading hours offered by northern NSW venues, and Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate has already vocalised his ambition to capitalise on NSW’s restrictions, hoping to tempt NSW patrons across the border and turn the Gold Coast into “Australia’s Las Vegas”. Thus while it may appear that crime rates decrease in areas affected by the lockout provisions, it may simply be that the violence has been relocated to another area. Logically, this increased congregation of patrons in an area may lead to increased levels of alcohol-fuelled violence, with crowding at licensed venues identified as a leading propagator of violent activity.

Conversely, decreases in the level of patronage of a given precinct will logically reduce the number of incidents in that area. Statistics on the reduction in patron numbers since the introduction of the lockout in Sydney don’t appear to receive the same attention in the media as those relating to decreases in violent behaviour. The reality appears to be that since the O’Farrell crackdown, crowds have deserted the Cross by up to 30%, with other anecdotal reports depicting the desertion of previously renowned nightlife spots.

Identified instigators and catalysts of alcohol-related violence include diverse factors such as personal biology, type of liquor consumed, characteristic of the licensed premises and surrounds and the culture of the community1. With the lockout provisions focusing on just one of the multitude of factors shown to increase the chances of violent activity, it can only be said that the provisions are a poor attempt to remedy a much larger social problem. A number of owners and managers of licensed venues throughout NSW attribute the general decrease in violent behaviour they have witnessed to their habit of self-policing; adopting strategies ranging from providing free water and food for patrons and limiting the types of drinks they sell after a certain time .

What is needed is not a wide-reaching ban on the sale of liquor, but more targeted attempts to change the behaviour of both managers of licensed venues and “high-risk” patrons. This could be achieved with a mix of increased education and awareness of alcohol-related violence, and incentives for operators of licensed venues to self-regulate and adopt responsible behaviour, with punishment reserved for offenders and for those who do not or cannot sufficiently manage patron violence.

1. Pernanen, K. (1998). Prevention of alcohol-related violence. Contemporary Drug Problems, 25(3), 477–509. https://doi.org/10.1177/009145099802500305^

Filed Under: News Tagged With: compliance, DSP, Extended Hours, lockout, safe night out

26 February 2014 by Matthew Jones

Low Risk Is Not Zero Risk

The Liquor Act was amended last year (received assent on 27 November 2013) to change the requirements for "low risk" licensed premises with respect to approved managers and RMLV training.

The relevant parts of the amended version of Section 155AD are set out below. I have bolded the bits that create the exemption for restaurants and cafes, or to be more correct, the holders of commercial other subsidiary on premises licences with either a "meals" or "prepared food" principal activity. The "prepared food" category, also known as a "café licence", gets included because of the definition of "subsidiary on-premises licence (meals)" in Section 4 of the Act (in case anyone’s interested).

155AD Who must be present or reasonably available at licensed premises etc.
(1) This section applies while the licensed premises or premises to which the permit relates are open for business.
(1A) However, this section does not apply to licensed premises under a subsidiary on–premises licence if the premises are a boat or on a boat.

(2) If the licensee or permittee is a corporation, the licensee or permittee must take reasonable steps to ensure that a person employed by the corporation as an approved manager–
(a) is present or reasonably available during the following times at the licensed premises or premises to which the permit relates–
(i) ordinary trading hours;
(ii) approved extended trading hours between 7a.m. and 10a.m.; and
(b) is present during approved extended trading hours between 12 midnight and 5a.m. at the licensed premises or premises to which the permit relates.
Maximum penalty–50 penalty units.

(3) If the licensee or permittee is an individual, the licensee or permittee must–
(a) be present or reasonably available, or take reasonable steps to ensure that a person employed by the individual as an approved manager is present or reasonably available, during the following times at the licensed premises or premises to which the permit relates–
(i) ordinary trading hours;
(ii) approved extended trading hours between 7a.m. and 10a.m.; and
(b) be present, or take reasonable steps to ensure that a person employed by the individual as an approved manager is present, during approved extended trading hours between 12 midnight and 5a.m. at the licensed premises or premises to which the permit relates.
Maximum penalty–50 penalty units.

(4) Subsection (3) applies subject to section 155AF.
(4A) If the premises are low risk premises and are not open for business beyond 12 midnight, the licensee or permittee is exempted from–
(a) for a licensee or permittee that is a corporation–subsection (2)(a); or
(b) for a licensee or permittee who is an individual–subsection (3)(a).

(4B) If the premises are low risk premises but are open for business beyond 12 midnight, the licensee or permittee is exempted until 10p.m. from–
(a) for a licensee or permittee that is a corporation–subsection (2)(a); or
(b) for a licensee or permittee who is an individual–subsection (3)(a).
…
(9) In this section–
low risk premises means premises to which any of the following relates–
(a) a subsidiary on-premises licence (meals);
(b) a community club licence if the club has 2000 or fewer members;
(c) a community other licence;
(d) a restricted liquor permit.

The changes are a little controversial for a couple of reasons. Firstly, many of our LGS Training clients have taken some convincing that this has actually happened – understandable of course when licensees have become used to the approved manager regime which has been around since the start of 2009. The feedback has bordered on incredulity at times. "So you’re saying no-one has to be trained? This is a big restaurant! What if something goes wrong? This can’t be right!" etc etc. I’ve patiently explained that even though it’s no longer a statutory requirement, it’s probably a very good idea for a licensee to have personnel with the RMLV qualification.

Secondly, as far as I’m aware it was actually intended to retain a requirement for low risk premises to at least have someone trained in RMLV. This has not eventuated with the amendment, but it may well be that further changes will correct this. The parliamentary committee (deep breath – the State Development Infrastructure and Industry Parliamentary Committee) in supporting the new 155AD mistakenly reported that "all licensees must complete Responsible Management of Licensed Venues (RMLV) training, which is the same training as that undertaken by approved managers." Of course, only a person who holds a licence as an individual needs to the do RMLV, and almost all licences in Queensland held by companies.

We know from long experience the value of proper diligence when it comes to liquor compliance, and conversely the elevated risk of negative consequences for licensees who do not have a clear focus on their technical obligations. "Low risk" does not equal "no risk" and we will continue to recommend to our clients that they ensure key members of staff obtain the RMLV qualification.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: amendments, compliance, Extended Hours, restaurant, RMLV

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