Parramatta’s Collector Hotel wins court action over Covid fines

Parramatta’s Collector Hotel has won a landmark court action protesting against Covid fines issued over the spacing of its poker machines.

It was a landmark case for the pub industry that has been battered by Covid, which was won on the back of a simple point.

“A poker machine can’t transmit Covid to another poker machine,” lawyer Paul McGirr told Downing Local Court on Wednesday.

Mr McGirr was acting for the owners of Parramatta’s Collector Hotel, which had been fined by Liquor and Gaming NSW for breaching Covid regulations in relation to the spacing of the poker machines in its gaming room.

Parramatta’s Collector Hotel spent $90,000 refurbishing the pub’s gaming room to properly space the poker machines.

But Mr McGirr told the court it only mattered if there were people sitting at the machines, which there weren’t because of a range of measures employed by the pub, including hiring a full-time Covid marshal who ensured people were not sitting on machines that were next to each other.

This Collector’s owners had also spent $90,000 refurbishing the pub’s gaming room to properly space the poker machines.

Investigators for Liquor and Gaming had gone into the pub in September armed with tape measures, and issued an infringement notice after alleging the pub’s poker machines were not spaced 1.5m apart.

The pub was looking at a maximum $50,000 fine and a possible criminal conviction, which could impact its licensing.

Instead of copping the punishment, the pub elected to fight it.

Lawyer Paul MCGirr argued against the fines for the Collector Hotel. Picture: NCA NewsWire

There have been six similar cases before the courts and the pub owners have pleaded guilty in all of them.

Given the battering the pub industry has taken during the Covid outbreak, industry figures were keenly interested in the result.

In court on Wednesday, Mr McGirr argued that current Covid laws said the 1.5m spacing of machines was irrelevant if the pub had taken practical measures to prevent the spread of Covid.

Magistrate Michael Anstrum agreed and, in court on Thursday, dismissed the charges.

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