In November last year the Liquor Licensing Authority (LLA) renewed the licence of the Victoria Night’n’Day store to sell wine, beer and mead until March 5 2010, but indicated that it was likely that any future application for renewal would be declined. This decision was based on the LLA’s judgement that the Sale of Liquor Act did not intend for convenience stores to be licensed.
Victoria Night’n’Day appealed the LLA’s decision to the High Court, but that appeal has been dismissed in a decision released by Judge John Fogarty on 27 July.
In its November decision the LLA stated that it believes “that much of the current debate about liquor abuse has its genesis in the 2000 decision to allow convenience stores to be licensed. With the benefit of hindsight, that was a turning point in the off-licence industry. There has been a proliferation in the number of off-licences being granted to convenience stores that have portrayed their businesses as scaled down supermarkets, when in fact some of them were nothing more than ambitious dairies. When one examines the Sale of Liquor Act’s objective, the reduction of liquor abuse might well be encouraged if the number and type of off-licences nationally was reduced.”
The LLA decided that as the store was not a grocery store entitled to hold a licence it had no entitlement to having its off-licence renewed.
The Christchurch City Council’s Liquor Licensing Team Leader, Paul Rogers, says in a general sense this will mean that only stores where people do their one large weekly grocery shop, and bottle stores, will be able to hold a liquor licence.
Mr Rogers says liquor licensing officers will now take this decision into consideration when assessing applications to renew a licence. Applications to allow new licences for the same types of stores have effectively been stopped by a previous decision in 2008. Liquor licences are currently for a three year period. He says the decision is likely to result in all stores, other than supermarkets and stand alone bottle stores, having their applications opposed.
“We expect that the outcome of this decision will be that there will be a substantial reduction in the number of stores selling alcohol nationwide.”
The Sale of Liquor Act states that supermarkets of at least 1000 square metres and grocery stores where the principal business of the store is the sale of main order household foodstuff requirements can be granted liquor licences. It also states that the authority can not grant off-licences to any service station or any shop of a kind commonly known as a dairy.
