Extended hours denial a blunder
The Police Commissioner’s battle against what he says is an epidemic of alcohol-fuelled violence has been dealt a blow after a Supreme Court judge ruled the Liquor Commission had blundered by denying a Fremantle bar’s application to extend its trading hours.
National Hotel Fremantle
The National Hotel applied in July 2013 to extend trading to 1am on Thursday and Friday and 2am on weekends. After more than a year of consideration, the Liquor Commission denied the bid after objections from Police Commissioner Karl O’Callaghan and health authorities.
The objections pointed to the level of “harm and ill-health” in Fremantle, in particular hospitalisations that attributed alcohol as a “major causal factor” and cited how more than 500 patients in just one year needed treatment in Fremantle’s emergency department for intoxication.
While the commission agreed there was no direct link between the National Hotel and the issues, it denied the bid for extended trading, saying “even a small increment in potential or actual harm may be determinative”.
But now after an appeal, Supreme Court Justice Jeremy Allanson has thrown out the decision and told the Liquor Commission to think again.
“The commission made a finding there is a high existing level of harm and ill health in Fremantle ... it made none of the other findings necessary to carry out the evaluative judgment of whether the application was in the public interest,” Justice Allanson wrote.
Pub owner Karl Bullers had argued the decision to deny 2am trading in Fremantle but allow it in Northbridge made no sense.
In opposing the original application, Mr O’Callaghan argued an extended licence would exacerbate the problem of alcohol-related harm in Fremantle.
Source: The West Australian, Tim Clarke, June 13th 2015
