Qld restaurants push for takeaway alcohol sales

Hospitality heavyweights are calling for changes to liquor licencing laws to help restaurants, cafes and bars.

The Coffee Commune’s Phillip Di Bella

Hospitality heavyweights are calling for changes to liquor licencing laws, allowing Queenslanders to be able to buy takeaway alcohol from their favourite restaurant, cafe or bar.

Currently Queenslanders are allowed to buy a maximum of 1.5l of wine with any takeaway meal ordered from a specially licenced restaurant.

However beer, pre-mixed drinks and other alcoholic beverages such as cider or canned cocktails cannot be purchased.

Cafes also are ineligible to sell takeaway alcohol of any kind.

Leading the push for change is hospitality advocacy group The Coffee Commune, which represents 900 food and beverage businesses throughout Queensland.

It claims the sale of alcohol would make a “huge” difference to the bottom line of hospitality venues, which are struggling to make ends meet amid cost-of-living pressures.

“It makes a big, big difference and it’s because it (the money) is going to the independent (eatery) rather than the multinational (bottle shop),” The Coffee Commune’s Phillip Di Bella said, claiming the move would see the Sunshine State fall into line with its interstate counterparts where the practise is already common.

“We’re saying if you are picking up takeaway food, why can’t you pick up a bottle or a six pack of beer?”

Restaurant and Catering Industry Association CEO Suresh Manickam

Restaurant and Catering Industry Association CEO Suresh Manickam agreed, but said the proportion of alcohol should be in line with the amount of food ordered so people weren’t overconsuming booze.

“We explored this through Covid. Everyone took it on for what it was, nobody abused it and it was a win-win for the restaurateur and the consumer,” he said

“It clearly worked. Now that it has been proven it worked, we need to explore this. We need to have this open to us.”

Restaurateur Philip Johnson from Brisbane dining institution E’cco Bistro in Newstead said the profits from takeaway alcohol wouldn’t be enough to save the struggling hospitality industry, but they would help.

“I don’t think any restaurant is going to threaten a bottle shop, but everything helps and it can only be a positive,” he said.

Wine guru and owner of restaurants Happy Boy, Snack Man and Petite Cameron Votan said his venues already sold takeaway wine and it was a nice adjunct to his bottom line.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Justice and Attorney-General could not comment on any potential changes to Queensland’s liquor laws due to election caretaker conventions.