Page 5670 - Week 13 - Thursday, 18 November 2010
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The de facto lockouts that will be created by the failure to disallow this fee schedule, the complicity in this fee schedule, will mean that people will leave licensed establishments before they are ready to go home. They will say: “It is only midnight. Yes, the night is still young. We will go somewhere else.” And they will get in a taxi or they will get on a bus and they will go to Civic, because that is the only place where people will be able to afford to stay open. Then they will queue up and there will be fights in queues and there will be fights on the street. That will be brought about because Simon Corbell’s ill-thought-out policy will result in more people in Civic, not fewer.
I will tell you some of the other things. Mr Smyth talked about Val Jeffery and his issues. But I will talk about Michael who runs the ACT Wine Industry Network and Brindabella Wine Tours. Michael’s business is mainly mail order. His network fees will increase by 50 per cent but his business model will be severely curtailed.
Part of his business is to run wine stalls as promotions in shopping centres. This provides about 30 per cent of his income. Under the current Liquor Act, Michael could apply to transfer his licence to a shopping centre to run a stall. Under the new Liquor Act, every time he wants to open a stall he will have to have a new liquor licence and a new risk assessment management plan for every stall he will operate. Michael said to me: “Heavens above, the local government have gone well and truly overboard. They are crucifying small businesses that are doing the right things.”
This is my personal favourite: Art Song Canberra Inc—we all know them; they used to be the Canberra Lieder Society but they are now Art Song Canberra Inc—are a not-for-profit cultural organisation that presents seven vocal recitals each year at the Wesley Music Centre in Forrest. And they provide recitals in lieder and art song from local, national and overseas artists. After Art Song’s concerts, they hold a private event with finger food and drinks for the 50 or so members of the audience who attend these recitals.
Art Song used to pay $40 for a permit to serve alcohol—not to sell it, to serve it. That fee will go up to $135. In addition, Art Song Canberra will have to obtain police checks for every member of the board, at $43 each for the nine members of the board, and they will be required to provide a final floor plan, a certificate of occupancy and apply for a lease advice which will cost them $132. And the lease advice is to determine whether the crown lease which they occupy allows for the storage and sale of liquor.
Art Song Canberra neither store nor sell liquor but they still need this certificate. As one of the members of the Art Song board said to me, these requirements are too stringent and are unreasonable for an organisation such as Art Song, which effectively has an intimate party of 50 people at the Wesley Music Centre, which is of course a well-known den of alcohol-fuelled violence!
This goes to show just how ridiculous this is and just how ridiculous the fee schedule is. The signing up of the Greens to this fee schedule today is a ridiculous measure that will drive not only small businesses to the wall but will make it increasingly difficult for small arts organisations to provide a glass of wine.
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