Outrage after southwest pub slapped with $7k COVID-19 fines
A pub in southern Queensland has been handed $7000 in fines for not complying with public health directions. The publican says he plans to fight the penalty.
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A ROMA publican has described the way police officers slapped his business with an almost $7000 fine for public health safety non-compliance as "atrocious".
Owner of the award-winning hotel Royal on Ninety-Nine in Roma, Bruce Garvie, told The Courier-Mail it has been hard enough dealing with restrictions, let alone undercover police.
“I felt as though we were treated as drug dealers or something like that,” Mr Garvie said.
“This is just the wrong way to police things. If they were fair dinkum they could have come in and said look we don’t agree with this, can we sit down and talk about it, that’s what they should be doing.
“They should be working with you.”
Queensland Police say they attended the establishment the night before and pointed out areas of non-compliance.
In a statement, police say they sent a taskforce to enforce COVID measures.
"Police issued three infringements to hotels in Roma, Injune and Wallumbilla for breaching the Chief Health Officer’s direction for restricted businesses as part of a compliance operation in the past week," the statement read.
“Despite officers speaking at length with business owners and providing information regarding compliance issues, premises continued to breach directions.”
“While police will continue to educate business owners, officers will take enforcement action, such as on the spot infringements of $6,672, against those who blatantly disregard public health directions.”
Mr Garvie disagreed with the idea of detectives coming into small towns with minimal cases to enforce infringements, like playing a game of pool.
All while 10,000 people can attend live sports events in Brisbane.
“Why would you come to a town of 7000 people and do this,” he said.
“It’s a community, the local police need the town and the town needs the police, everybody works together, but we don’t need this.”
“These guys need to go back to the city and stay there, they don’t understand the bush.”
Mr Garvie is hoping to appeal the fine as he learns more about its reasons for being issued.
Originally published as Outrage after southwest pub slapped with $7k COVID-19 fines