Liquor Licensing wants applicants to more fully demonstrate their licences will be in the public interest. Despite this, 15 applications were successful in the past six months.
Liquor Licensing wants applicants to more fully demonstrate their licences will be in the public interest. Despite this, 15 applications were successful in the past six months.
Western Australia’s liquor licensing regime is often labelled as antiquated, particularly when licence applications from high-profile hospitality operators like Nic Trimboli are knocked back, but approvals in the past six months have far outweighed rejections.
Fifteen applicants for liquor licences were successful between May and October compared to only five that were rejected.
Applicants had to satisfy a more stringently applied test of the public interest and achieve adequate public support for their proposals.
Decisions by Liquor Licensing in the past six months were also made on the basis applications were not successfully challenged by the Department of Health, the police and the community.
One of the most recent successful applicants marks a significant development in Perth’s CBD, with The Terrace Hotel granted the city’s first hotel licence in several years.
The Terrace is a 15-suite, boutique six-star hotel currently under development that will take shape in the heritage-listed Bishops See building that fronts St Georges Terrace.
Project architect Jean-Mic Perrine said he and the Terrace’s operator, Hospitality Inn chief executive Chris Pye, knew the process of obtaining a hotel licence would be arduous.
The process took just over 12 months, which was shorter than they had expected.
“We worked very hard with the applicants and the various bodies that make these decisions to try to get it done as quickly as possible but they do take time,” Mr Perrine said.
The Terrace Hotel was targeting a sophisticated crowd, something Mr Perrine said differentiated the application because it was argued successfully it would fill a demonstrated “personal” void in the hotel market and was, therefore, in the public interest.
“It encompasses uses like the boutique hotel, private wine cellars, that you simply don’t get in Perth, and, therefore by its nature, it fills a niche much more appropriately than just another liquor application,” he said. “The CBD is struggling with a plethora of half-conceived liquor concepts. The mediocrity of those outlets shines through after four or five months of trading.”
When it came to The Terrace Hotel’s application, great lengths were taken to fulfil the requirements of the public-interest test.
“The relevant bodies don’t take that demand exists simply because someone signed a petition and there are 200 names on a petition, the usual things you see,” Mr Perrine said.
“They have taken a different tack over the last year and I think it is an appropriate one. If you are going to show demand exists, you have got to really show personal demand and people have to personally show how they would use the facilities.”
The petition organised for the hotel involved obtaining nearly 200 personalised references from people who acknowledged they would use the hotel and explaining how and why they would use it.
Mr Perrine said while he recognised the police, Department of Health and Liquor Licensing had become more stringent around licensing over the past 12 months, this was not necessarily a bad thing.
“I heard only a couple of days ago someone saying that was typical of Perth, we are such a backward place because we don’t get liquor licences willy-nilly but I don’t know that getting liquor licences willy-nilly is a sign of a sophisticated city,” he said.
The rejected applications generally failed to satisfy the public-interest test.
In a decision to reject an application by Margaret River Providore for a tavern licence, Liquor Licensing director Barry Sargeant said the letters of support submitted by the applicant were not rigorous or compelling enough.
“Letters of support which purport to speak on behalf of consumers do not constitute sound or objective evidence that the proposed licensed premised will be catering for the requirements of consumers for liquor and related services,” the decision said.
In relation to the unsuccessful application for a small bar licence in Henley Brook, Mr Sargeant said: “An applicant must satisfy the licensing authority that the grant of the application is in the public interest … in this case the applicant has made assertions about the perceived benefits of its application without any supporting evidence, which is relevant, reliable and logically probative.”
He said “an applicant must submit an appropriate level of evidence as the onus is on applicants to demonstrate … that the grant of an application is in the public interest.”
Lavan Legal partner Dan Mossenson said the public-interest test was introduced in the 2007 Liquor Control Act amendments.
Before that there was a requirement test, which provided initial evidence of a need for the licence that was argued in a case hearing.
Mr Mossenson said abolishing case hearings and introducing demands for details through the public-interest test created a more involved process upfront.
“Now you have to prepare everything in advance, an enormous amount of preparation, anticipation and cost goes into the equation,” he said.
