Around the country, many bars and licensed premises have started reopening to a restricted number of people.

As your patrons begin to return to your venue, it is important to make sure you are sticking to the rules required for all licensed premises regardless of a pandemic, otherwise a huge fine, or even worse, could be on its way.  

Here we look at a few recent incidents to explore the most common issues that land licensed businesses in trouble.

Irresponsible service of alcohol

Serving alcohol to a minor or an intoxicated person is a common offence with very costly, sometimes deadly, consequences. In 2015, a South Australian hotel and its manager were fined $40,000 and $10,000 respectively after serving a drunk patron who died in a car crash on the way home. Venues can also face civil action launched by victims and their families so it is important to regularly check you responsibilities as a licensee.

In NSW, you can apply and review your role as a licensee here and upkeep you and your staffs certifications. If however, you staff does make a wrong decision, there are ways to mitigate the risk. Poor decision making from employees is something you may be able to can guard against with management liability insurance.

Simply removing a patron from your venue can be problematic too. The industry has seen a Sydney restaurant fined $2,200 by police for leaving two unconscious women on the street after serving them 16 shots of Soju within 40 minutes. The restaurant faced further sanctions from the NSW’s Liquor and Gaming Authority whose director of compliance operations told the ABC: “it’s hard to imagine a worse case of a venue failing in its obligations to prevent misuse and abuse of alcohol.”

Disturbances and violence

Take a look at key decisions made by Liquor & Gaming NSW and you’ll see disturbances are a very common problem for licensed venues. Venues are frequently investigated for ‘“unduly disturbing’” the ‘“quiet and good order’” of their neighbourhood and can be required to reduce opening hours in certain parts of their premises, undertake remedial works and deploy security staff, all of which can be expensive and inflict significant opportunity costs.

Alcohol-related violence on premises, meanwhile, is commonly met with fines, precinct-wide lock-out laws, trading hours being cut back, or licences being revoked – not to mention serious and costly reputational damage for your business.And violence can occur in even the most unassuming of places – recently a Brisbane karaoke restaurant licensee was fined $40,000 after an “extremely violent” brawl broke out.

Advertising

Inappropriate advertising can get your licensed venue in a spot of trouble too, as one Newcastle pub discovered earlier this year after advertising a competition encouraging patrons to “win their height” in vodka drinks. 

“This promotion posed an unacceptable risk of excessive alcohol consumption,” the state’s director of compliance operations Sean Goodchild told the Newcastle Herald. 

Most states and territories also have licensee restrictions on ‘happy hour’ promotions, raffles, theme nights and prizes. So it pays to check before you get too generous. 

Mitigating risk

Even if you’re doing everything in your power to reduce these risks, the fact is: an untrained or rogue employee/ or patron, an irresponsible nearby venue, or a simple mistake can prove very costly for a licensed venue. 

This is why it’s important to have a good business insurance solution in place – like public liability, management liability, business interruption and events insurance. 

Whilst, insurance is only part of the solution you should also consider having with robust risk management, compliance and training.

*This is a Steadfast article. A link to the original article can be found here. Note – all examples are based on specific circumstances to the particular situation which may vary from situation to situation.

If you have any questions on this information or any matter, please do not hesitate to reach out to your account manager or the office on (02) 9587 3500 or email us at theteam@wsib.com.au.