Alice Springs pubs' success doesn't have to come at expense of patrons' lives

I DON'T agree that alcohol prohibition is the answer to managing alcohol abuse.

As the owner of the Heavitree Gap Tavern, which is part of our Heavitree Gap Outback Lodge on the outskirts of Alice Springs, Australian Property Projects is one of the biggest owners of hospitality properties in Australia.

Our other hospitality properties, operated by Aurora Hotels-Resorts-Attractions include Aurora Alice Springs, Aurora Kakadu, Aurora Shady Glen Tourist Park, Kakadu Lodge and Caravan Park and the Aurora Ozone Hotel on SA's Kangaroo Island. We've achieved success in this sector over two decades and employ hundreds of people across our company.

Among our many customers are indigenous Australians, in whose communities we operate and whose aspirations and issues we have worked hard to understand. These issues including the potential abuse of substances including petrol and alcohol are complex and require cooperation and care in their management.

I believe that as a company we are fortunate to have working for us a group of caring and responsible people and we're all committed to supporting both the Northern Territory and federal governments' attempts to tackle local alcohol abuse issues, just as we fully support the police and appreciate the challenges they face.

As a long-term liquor licence operator at no time in our history have we ever been in breach of our licensing conditions.

It's important to protect the viability of local business operations but this is not inconsistent with implementing initiatives that may result in a reduction in alcohol sales and consumption if it means improving community life and patron wellbeing.

Because we are determined to take the initiative and find ways to make a difference, we've taken a range of voluntary actions in recent months that I hope will set a standard and inspire fellow operators to follow our lead.

These include:

* Heavitree Gap Tavern has voluntarily agreed to observe bans on patrons that apply in other licensed premises in designated areas of Alice Springs where police now have the power to ban people from licensed premises for up to 48 hours. If patrons are banned there, they are also banned from the Heavitree Gap Tavern;

* The tavern's front bar opening time has been pushed back an hour to 11am;

* If our staff identify any unsupervised children in the car park or tavern surrounds, their parents are located and then banned from the premises for six months;

* Alcohol products in our supermarket adjacent the tavern are kept in a locked area and customers are accompanied by staff when making their purchases;

* We do not undertake heavy discounting of wine products.

In Alice Springs, we've been working with the local Aboriginal community organisation, the Lhere Artepe Group. Both Lhere Artepe and our team agree that business success shouldn't come at the expense of patrons' lives. We also agree that together we have an opportunity assist in educating the community about the responsible service and consumption of alcohol.

Sale of cask wine is banned at the IGA supermarkets recently acquired by Lhere Artepe. Under the new ownership onsite nutritionists provide advice to shoppers, including young mothers and other care givers. I've also adopted the same strategies at our own IGA supermarket part of the Heavitree Gap Outback Lodge, where cask wine is no longer stocked.

We are working closely with the CEO of Lhere Artepe Darryl Pearce, who says he hopes other local retailers follow our lead.

We've taken a lot of steps in recent months, but our record of playing a part in addressing some of the social issues in the NT didn't begin recently.

For example, when my business partner Michael Manning and I bought the Aurora Kakadu property at South Alligator in Kakadu National Park in 1999, it incorporated the only takeaway liquor outlet outside of Jabiru before the Bark Hut, which is a further 90km towards Darwin - we voluntarily stopped selling takeaway alcohol altogether.

Originally we had been asked to sell only low-alcohol lines to indigenous customers, but we voluntarily terminated all off-premise alcohol sales because we didn't think it was fair to discriminate between indigenous and non-indigenous customers.

That policy, still in place today, has cost us more than $1.5 million in lost net profits over the past 11 years but has made a significant and widely acknowledged contribution to the wellbeing of local communities.

I've also committed our fuel outlet at Aurora Kakadu to the Opal fuel rollout in the region to assist the fight against petrol sniffing.

All these initiatives - including the voluntary imposition of service restrictions at our Heavitree Tavern premises - are an integral part of our contribution to the wellbeing of NT communities because I know we have a responsibility to play our part in the community.

Ian Drummond's company Australian Property Projects owns Heavitree Gap.