Pub granted last minute stay on trading hours
The Sydney Junction Hotel in Newcastle has been allowed to keep trading until 3am despite police asking for the extended trading licence to be revoked.
Sydney Junction topped the list of NSW venues with the highest recorded incidents in May 2018. However, then owner Campbell Rogers called into question the figures and how they were collated.
The hotel's new owners, who took over on September 7, attempted to delay Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority action less than a week later to restrict trading to midnight, citing evidence only one alleged assault was reported near the hotel between 1.30am and 3am in the previous six months.
In granting the trading extension, Justice Rothman said evidence showed the number of adverse incidents had "plummeted" in the previous year, with the hotel saying they had fallen by 80 per cent and police acknowledging a 60 per cent fall.
The hotel would experience "a real and substantial prejudice" of $35,000 per week loss from the bar alone if extended trading hours were reduced, according to Justice Rothman.
"There is at least some material that establishes that, as earlier stated, the level of incidents that were occurring ... was no greater than the level of incidents that were occurring in other like hotels in the environs," Justice Rothman said.
20th May 2019
