Licence denied: no beer with burger
Danger Danger won’t be selling anyone a beer with their takeaway burger order – and no-one else will either.
Matt McLaughlin, who owns the bar, asked the Alcohol Regulatory and Licensing Authority (Arla) for an off-site special licence to sell alcohol with the food people were ordering and collecting from the Courtenay Place premises.
It was a new type of application never heard before and brought about by the Covid-19 lockdown.
Arla had a special hearing earlier this week to determine if a limited licence could be issued.
Lawyer Alistair Sherriff sought a licence for three months, or even shorter, to allow people to order with their meal, then take it away to have in their own homes.
He said they were not looking to sell great quantities of alcohol with the meals. People would have to order a meal to get the alcohol.
Police and the Medical Officer of Health opposed the application.
Danger Danger has been quickly knocked back, however.
The authority said the application raised questions of wider precedent for other on-licensed premises, given the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the hospitality sector.
In the decision, the authority said the applicant was not a distributor of alcohol – like a brewery — and consumption in people’s homes was not an ‘event’ under the act.
Bars are expected to be open again on May 21. Even then they have to follow contact tracing rules, maintain physical distancing and have no more than 100 people gathered. For Danger Danger, which can hold up to 200 people, its capacity will be reduced by half.
The authority said an off-site special licence could not be a substitute for an off-licence or an onlicence.
‘‘There is no doubting that the circumstances brought about by Covid-19 are unusual and unprecedented.
‘‘As Mr Sherriff has noted, this is the first time since the first liquor licence was issued in New Zealand 180 years ago, [that] the people have not been able to gather to drink alcohol in licenced premises,’’ Arla said.
It said an off-site special licence was not able to be issued to help alleviate the hardships the current circumstances brought.
McLaughlin said it was clear the option for the bar now was to go for a full-time off licence, which it would be doing shortly.
He said the application was a way to explore how places like bars could generate revenue streams, while complying with lockdown.