Extension to speedway club’s bar hours overturned on appeal

Ready to race: Stockcars line up at the start of a race at Gisborne Speedway Club’s Eastland Group Raceway. The club has a Christmas meeting on Saturday and had initially been granted an extension to its clubhouse bar hours. The district’s chief licensing inspector won an appeal against that decision. A preview for Saturday’s meeting will be in tomorrow’s Herald. Picture by Liam Clayton

A ruling by the Alcohol Regulatory and Licensing Authority has reduced the hours granted to the Gisborne Speedway Club by the District Licensing Authority.

The club wants to operate longer than the hours contained in the new local alcohol policy.

It was granted extended hours by the licensing committee but chief licensing inspector Judith Robertson appealed that and the appeal has been upheld.

The reserved decision follows a hearing in Gisborne last week.

It means that between October 1 and May 31 the club must close its bar at midnight on Friday and Saturday, and at 11pm from Sunday to Thursday.

The licensing committee had granted the club a licence to operate to 1.30am with a “drink-up” time of 2am.

For the avoidance of doubt these hours take immediate effect, the authority has ruled.

In the reserved decision, authority chairman, District Court Judge K.D.Kelly. says that put simply, the district licensing committee cannot grant longer hours than those contained in the local alcohol policy once the policy is in force.

The authority agreed with a submission from Alistair Sherriff, the counsel for the chief licensing inspector, that the fundamental scheme of the act was that a licensee could only ever have one licence of a particular kind for a premises.

A licence issued following renewal is the same licence as that which applied prior to renewal albeit it may be issued subject to different conditions.

The respondent’s submission that the policy does not apply to renewals of licences “conflates elements of the policy”, said the decision.

The authority was not satisfied there was a need to impose “a one-way door policy”.

It recognised evidence given to the district licensing committee that often race meetings did not finish before 9.30pm and more likely between 10 and 10.30pm.

Imposing a one-way door policy would be onerous to the club.