Late nights at Awapuni threatened
Robertson told councillors the Awapuni centre should be exempted from a blanket geographical ban on trading later.
Palmerston North’s Awapuni Function Centre could face curfews that would undermine its $2.2 million-a-year-business under proposed new licensing rules.
The city council’s draft local alcohol policy, if adopted, could force it to finish serving drinks at 12.30am after Friday and Saturday night functions, and 10.30pm on week nights.
At the moment, the function centre is licensed to operate until 1am, Monday to Sunday.
Race chief executive Alasdair Robertson said the shorter hours would affect the vast majority of its evening events, and put some bookings at risk.
That could undermine the contribution the centre made to the city and region’s economy.
The centre entertained about a quarter of the people who came from out of town to attend events and functions in the city.
The venue’s caterers, Creative Catering, employed eight full-time staff and up to 50 casuals outside regular race days.
Robertson told councillors the Awapuni centre should be exempted from a blanket geographical ban on trading later, given its role as a specialised venue contributing to employment and business in the city.
The function centre has recently applied for a renewal of its on-licence, seeking a continuation of the 8am to 1am hours.
Robertson said the council had got it wrong in applying generic rules about on-licensed premises trading around the city to its purpose-built and well-run venue.
Council policy analyst Peter Ridge said the overall approach of the draft local alcohol policy was for everything to close an hour earlier than at present.
But the issue had become more complicated outside the inner, outer and fringe business zones, the industrial zone, and the local business zone.
The draft policy could affect several other venues outside Palmerston North’s central business district, including the Albert Sports Bar, Willow Park Tavern and Orlando Country Club.
The Albert, currently licensed until 3am, could face a midnight closing time because it had residential neighbours.
Spokesman Jared Rawiri said the bar was an established part of the community and operated without any trouble.
He said it was better for people to stay and enjoy themselves in a supervised environment, and early closing would encourage more home parties and less responsible drinking.
Willow Park Tavern operator Fraser Donaldson said the early closing would be so detrimental to the business, it would be impossible to continue trading.
He said he had not had any negative feedback from the tavern’s neighbourhood about latefinishing functions.
Donaldson said private parties such as weddings and birthdays made up a substantial part of the business, and he thought the early closing time would discourage many of those customers.
Ridge said the effects on the Awapuni and Orlando could possibly be ‘‘fixed’’ by changing the draft policy. The Albert, and possibly some others, were protected at the moment by ‘‘existing rights’’ provisions.
Ridge said a possibility to resolve the anomalies would be to change the District Plan to remove controls on trading hours for selling alcohol, but that would be costly and could mean delaying development of the alcohol policy.
There were 45 submissions on the draft policy, with more than half of them generally in support of 2am closing for central city bars and 10pm closing for bottle stores, supermarkets and dairies selling alcohol.
The council’s community development committee will not deliberate on the submissions and any recommended changes to the draft policy until March, 2018.