Beer with your fries
A novel application to be able to sell alcohol with takeaway meals has been brought urgently before the Alcohol Regulatory and Licensing Authority by Danger Danger bar owner Matt McLaughlin.
The bar is looking to sell a limited amount of alcohol with a meal ordered by people who are dining in their own homes.
Danger Danger has an on licence for its Courtenay Place premises but would need an off licence to sell something such as a bottle of beer with a hamburger for someone who ordered.
Restrictions under level 2 meant the number of people who can go into the bar when it reopens next week means that only a certain number of people will be able to be on the premises at once.
Danger Danger is doing takeaways like its burger called Mr Social Distancing but can’t sell alcohol.
McLaughlin is also the Hospitality New Zealand Wellington branch president.
The bar’s lawyer, Alastair Sherriff, said it was a yes or no question and had, to his knowledge, not been considered by the authority before.
The authority, made up of Judge Kevin Kelly and three other members, heard the application in Wellington yesterday.
Sherriff said it would be modest amounts of alcohol between the hours of 12pm and 9pm for three months or until the bar was able to open normally.
He is also asking the authority to grant the licence immediately.
He said under the act the Covid19 pandemic could be called an event for the purposes of the offlicence and a gathering would be in people’s homes.
Lawyer for the Ministry of Health Gregor Allan, in opposing the application, said they were interpreting the act in a way it was never meant to be interpreted.
He said economic reasons underpinned it.
Police Sergeant Shane Benge said an event has to happen where the alcohol was being sold so, for a food fair, the licence was for the location of the fair, not for a hundred different homes.
Benge said he believed granting it would open the floodgates for further applications.
District Licencing Committee inspector Lewis Howells said he was concerned with the future harm and already vulnerable areas which could be inundated with on licence premises having off-licence special licences.
Howells said the application stretched the limits of what a special off licence was for.
The Authority reserved decision. its