Page 1472 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 6 April 2005
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Just the other day, on Monday, I heard of some ongoing problems in relation to the Waldorf hotel, the complex over the road from here, which has a number of apartments on the southern side which back onto the area just before ActewAGL where there is, I understand, a nightclub called Toast. This goes back a fair while. There is a list of complaints, especially relating to Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, in relation to this particular establishment, which often does not get rid of its people till about 5.00 or 6.00 in the morning. The complaints involve verbal abuse, guests being woken up and, occasionally, when guests have complained, their being abused. In one instance recently they had a milk crate thrown at them. The guest rooms are probably only about 15 to 20 metres away from the front door of this establishment and overlook it.
The Waldorf, which I think is a $50 million enterprise employing 150 people and which is very important for Canberra, has complained on numerous occasions to the office and to other government instrumentalities. Effectively, all that has occurred so far has been that the chairs outside have been taken inside. It appears, for whatever reason, the office is unable or unwilling to take adequate steps there.
I would commend that particular problem to the government to look at. The suggestion was that, if that establishment finished trading at about 11.00 pm, it would be fine—and it would be very simple—because that is basically when the guests go to sleep. The hotel has offered a number of guests a complete refund because of the problems that they complained to management about. Management cannot do much about it because they do not have control over the establishment 15 or 20 metres away. I think it is rather strange that an establishment like that was allowed to be set up in the first place. Clearly there are several government agencies involved, but the Office of Fair Trading has been contacted on numerous occasions. I certainly commend to them and the government a look into that problem.
There is one other vexed problem that I will mention. This is of great concern to the liquor industry generally, to the various members of the Australian Hotels Association—the hotels and night establishments around here—and to the clubs association. It is a difficult task. I have known people like Ed Stachow, who recently left the office to go elsewhere, for many years. He did a wonderful job. He had been a liquor inspector since probably its inception. I did a number of prosecutions for him. There are some significant issues that I will commend to the government in terms of perhaps some possible solutions they might like to look at.
I held a liquor forum last May. One of the biggest problems expressed related to liquor licensing. Everyone felt that, really, liquor licensing would be better coming under police control. I will elaborate on that later because I think that that is something the government needs to look at. I do not have a completely fixed view one way or the other, but some fairly powerful points were made.
The attendees felt that, in their dealings with liquor licensing and the Office of Fair Trading, it was like an us-and-them situation and they were made to feel as if they were criminals. They gave me a couple of specific examples as to problems they had encountered. I can understand their point of view. One related to a problem near the RSL club in Civic. Some liquor licensing people turned up there. There was a restaurant party going on next door and people had spilled out onto the footpath; they were making
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