NT hospitality, development heavyweights face off in tribunal over rival pubs’ pokies plan
The owner of a proposed Zuccoli pub and bistro has taken a rival tavern, also still in the planning phase, and the NT Liquor Commission to the tribunal over the rival’s plan to put pokies in the new venue.
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The owner of a proposed Zuccoli pub and bistro has taken a rival’s proposed tavern and the NT Liquor Commission to the administrative tribunal after the commission signed off on the rival’s cheeky ploy to get gaming machines into its new venue.
Armada Hotels and Leisure Pty Ltd, the proponent of the mooted Parkside Bistro at the corner of Bloodwood St and Tuckeroo Blvd (alongside a trio of other companies), is seeking to overturn the Liquor Commission’s decision of August 4 last year.
That decision was to allow the transfer of a liquor licence, held by DCL Hospitality Pty Ltd, from Heavitree Gap Tavern Bar & Bistro, which has permanently closed, to the company’s proposed new tavern at Zuccoli Plaza.
As the Liquor Commission stated in its decision, the transfer of the licence from Alice Springs to Zuccoli, as opposed to DCL simply acquiring a new licence, was a barefaced ploy to allow DCL’s new tavern to operate 10 electronic gaming machines (pokies), which had been allocated to Heavitree Gap.
Since 2018, the NT government has capped the number of machines in the Territory.
The Liquor Commission found, notwithstanding that the 10 pokies machines were the raison d’être for DCL’s substitution of premises, consideration of the machines’ effect on the community was outside its remit.
That consideration instead fell to the Director of Gaming Machines, who is understood to have not made a decision on the transfer of machines yet.
The Department of Trade, Business and Asian Relations, under which the director sits, was unable to comment by deadline.
In its claim before the Northern Territory Civil and Administrative Tribunal, developer David Anthony, who is the driving force behind the proposed Parkside Bistro, claimed the Liquor Commission erred in its application of the relevant sections of the Liquor Act 2019.
“The Commission … failed to turn its mind to the question of whether or not it was appropriate or permissible to entertain a Substitution Application in respect of the Licence in circumstances where the existing premises were located in Heavitree Gap Alice Springs had not been in use as a licensed premises (or at all) since prior to 5 September 2018, and the proposed substituted premises were located in suburb outer-Darwin (Zuccoli), some 1476 kilometres away,” Mr Anthony’s claim stated.
The Liquor Commission also “took too narrow view of the extent to which it could take into account the acknowledged social harm caused by electronic gaming machines”.
Parkside Bistro has sought and gained approval for 20 electronic gaming machines in its new venue.
It’s understood Mr Anthony already held the entitlement for 20 machines, so they are under the cap.
In its response to the claim by Mr Anthony and the group of companies, DCL made no additional submissions, referring instead to the Liquor Commission’s decision and calling for it to be upheld, as did the commission in its response.
The case will next return to the tribunal at a later date.
Relations between Mr Anthony and DCL, which is owned by hospitality veterans Darren Lynch, Guy Dunne, and Andrew Case, are strained.
In its decision allowing DCL’s substitution of premises, the Liquor Commission said it received evidence that Mr Anthony had solicited objections to DCL’s proposed tavern and engaged in other acts to frustrate its competitor in a bid to protect his own commercial position.
This included Mr Anthony registering the business name ‘Zuccoli Tavern’ shortly after DCL revealed that to be the likely name of its new venture.
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