Karama Tavern forced to close bottle-o for eight hours on a Friday over BDR breaches

A POPULAR tavern’s bottle-o will be forced to close its doors for eight hours on a Friday afternoon after staff failed to properly screen customers under banned drinker register legislation

The Karama Tavern bottle shop will be forced to close for eight hours on March 19.

THE Karama Tavern bottle-o will be forced to close its doors for eight hours on a Friday afternoon after staff failed to properly screen customers under banned drinker register legislation almost 50 times.

The Liquor Commission found staff at the tavern failed to properly scan the IDs of people buying takeaway alcohol on 46 occasions during a period of just over a week last year.

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Licensee Peter La Pira told the commission the business had held the licence for more than three decades and had worked hard to abide by the conditions of the licence.

Mr La Pira said two of the three staff members involved in the breaches were no longer employed at the tavern — with the main offender fired as a result — and the third had since been given additional training.

The commission heard the tavern had also implemented extra training for all bottle shop staff as well as reminders about checking IDs against the BDR on the transaction terminal.

Since the breaches, the commission heard the tavern had also undertaken three audits of CCTV footage at the tills which demonstrated 100 per cent compliance.

In suspending its takeaway licence for eight hours from 2pm on March 19, the commission found while the breaches only amounted to a small fraction of total transactions, they demonstrated a “complete disregard” for the requirements.

“And as stated by Mr Pira to the commission … ‘It’s not rocket science’,” the decision reads.

In its making its ruling, the commission said while it had been “extremely difficult to determine an appropriate penalty, it had taken into account the business’s commitment to change and the financial impact of any suspension.

“There is no doubt in the mind of the commission members that the licensee has taken these breaches very seriously and taken extremely swift action to remedy the same,” the commissioners wrote.

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“The statements made by Mr La Pira to the commission clearly indicated a significant level of remorse.”

But the commissioners noted complying with the requirements of the BRD was “not difficult”.

“In addition the BDR provisions are extremely important provisions in terms of supply reduction and subsequent reduction of the risk to the community of problem drinking,” the decision reads.

“It was acknowledged that this was a particularly important issue in and around the premises and particularly into the attached supermarket premises.”

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