New national campaign aims to crack down on bottle-o staff violence

Shocking attacks on one group of workers is on the rise, with industry leaders saying the holiday season is particularly dangerous.

A new liquor retail industry campaign seeks to mitigate hostility, aggression, and even violence aimed at bottle shop staff as they head into their busiest time of the year.

The body representing the liquor retail industry, Retail Drinks Australia, has teamed up with liquor store chains big and small across the country to launch the Safe to Serve initiative.

In this instance, a drive-through bottle shop worker was struck in the face with a soft drink bottle as he tried to prevent alleged thieves from leaving with cartons.

Crime figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show 24 per cent of all robberies in Australia occur within the retail industry, with 54 per cent of those being armed robberies.

Liquor is the most frequently reported stolen item and is as high as 37 per cent of all retail theft incidents in some jurisdictions.

And assaults within the retail industry have also increased 47 per cent in recent years.

Two men pull a knife on this bottle-shop worker before making off with six-packs and cigarettes.

Retail Drinks chief Michael Waters said the issue came to a head following the stabbing death of 20-year-old Darwin BWS worker Declan Laverty in March, allegedly killed by a 19-year-old man after Ms Laverty refused him service.

“It was the first death of a retail worker in my entire time in the industry,” Mr Waters said.

“This really triggered a discussion … we’re becoming increasingly concerned at the state of affairs.”

A committee was formed within a month of Mr Laverty’s death, and after months of work the Safe To Serve campaign is ready for launch, complete with a toolkit for liquor store owners to help support workers and customers.

Retail Drinks Australia chief Michael Waters (left) with Red Bottle chief Scott Towers, two of the major forces behind the campaign.

“It’s a three-pronged approach designed to educate, improve awareness and understanding and support advocacy efforts,” Mr Waters said.

“It’s designed for small business owners … the larger end of town have this covered already, but the smaller end of town don’t have the resources for this sort of thing.”

The toolkit includes information on essential topics like working with police, improving in-store security, and teaching staff how to de-escalate situations.

It also includes posters for display in-store to discourage anti-social behaviour.

The Safe to Serve campaign aims to educate bottle-shop staff on how to deal with customer aggression and violence.

“It’s been something that totally shocked me, the level of that violence,” Mr Waters said, pointing to the most severe cases in which bottle-shop staff have been physically attacked.

“They don’t deserve to be treated this way … it’s not a retail liquor issue, it’s a wider retail issue. But it seems to be amplified for us though,” he said, adding that liquor stores also selling cigarettes makes them a huge target.

Red Bottle Group associate director Andrew McKay, whose company runs 12 independent bottle shops in and around Sydney, said assaults on his staff were unfortunately a sign of the times. He said he had noticed an increase in incidents since a downturn during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Those in the liquor retail industry agree the problem of customer aggression and shop theft is made worse around Christmas.

“We’re in a fortunate position, we’re quite proactive about this … we’re now seeing instances dropping off (by) using principles in the guidelines. We do a lot of those already,” he said.

Some of those principles include simply greeting customers as they enter the store, a common tactic in the retail industry.

“When someone knows you know they’re in the store they think twice about stealing something,” Mr McKay said.

“We’re big on making sure everyone feels safe in the environment, and through the training, I think we’re better at identifying potential incidents.

“Everyone should feel safe at work. We’ll send people home if something’s happened, we’ll follow up. We make sure we go through the right procedures.”

He said incidents with aggressive customers and violent shop thefts increased around Christmas.

“There’s a couple of things that come into play there, the stores are busier … Christmas is a hard time where people want something they can’t afford, so we do see a spike,” he said.

“With Retail Drinks, it’s nice they take the lead on these things, but they do it in the right areas. The only way we’re going to address these issues is if we’re all on the same page.”

Safe To Serve ties in with other bottle shop campaigns like DrinkWise, ID 25, and Don’t Buy It For Them.

Among the big names getting on-board with the campaign are Coles Liquor and Endeavour Group, the parent company of Woolworths liquor chains BWS and Dan Murphy’s.

“Coles Liquor is proud to be a member of the Safe to Serve initiative which, in collaboration with other liquor retailers, is committed to providing a safe and secure environment for our team members, customers and the community,” Coles Liquor national security and profit protection manager Andrew Sayers said.

Endeavour Group head of operation risk and protection Alison McCallum said every day they saw the impact retail crime had on their team.

“At Endeavour Group, the safety of our staff is our No.1 priority, so we’re really proud to put our full support behind the Safe to Serve initiative,” Ms McCallum said.

Other key stakeholders include Australia Post, Metcash, NSW Police, Redfern Retail Risk, Uber and Vantage Group.

More information on the Safe To Serve campaign, and a download for the online toolkit, can be found on the Retail Drinks Australia website.