September 2023
Executive Summary
The Restaurant Association supports the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Community Participation) Amendment Bill. We recognise that the passing of this Bill will remove a significant anomaly in law that exists for the more than 600 small wineries across the country.
We celebrate the removal of this regulatory burden on cellar door operators, and want to see a broader review of the regulatory environment for hospitality to ensure it is conducive to productivity and business growth. The Restaurant Association would be glad to partner with the Government on such a project.
As such, the Restaurant Association makes the following recommendations:
- Recommendation 1: that a broad review of the regulatory environment for hospitality is undertaken, to ensure it is conducive to productivity and business growth.
- Recommendation 2: that a more fulsome review of the cost/risk rating of premises within the regulations is undertaken to better reflect the actual risk of harm.
Introduction
The Restaurant Association of New Zealand (the Restaurant Association) welcomes the opportunity to make a submission on the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Cellar Door Tasting) Amendment Bill, and we wish to appear before the Select Committee to speak to this submission.
We support the Bill, particularly given that its passing will remove an anomaly in law that exists for the more than 600 small wineries across the country.
Currently, the primary Act forces wineries to either give wine away for free, or go through significant cost and time to acquire and maintain a separate on-licence to charge for samples of their product at a cellar door—even if that premises already holds an on-licence for a separate part of their establishment (for example, a restaurant within a winery). This usually necessitates the establishment of a completely separate legal entity, just to hold a separate licence for their cellar door.
Our more than 2,500-strong membership is made up of hospitality businesses where food is the hero of their operations. Nevertheless, many offer alcoholic beverages as a supplement to the culinary experience they provide, which is only elevated when delivered as part of a cellar door experience.
We recognise the need to ensure the sale, supply and consumption of alcohol is undertaken safely and responsibly, and do not believe that this Bill will be contrary to those goals.
In fact, this Bill has the potential to reduce harm by enabling cellar doors to charge for the samples they provide, instead of being required to give those samples away for free – an anomaly which consumers have been known to take advantage of.
Regulatory burden on Hospitality
Within the hospitality sector, employers are predominantly owner-operators who are intimately involved in the day-to-day running of their small business. Their access to time and resources is often limited.
While regulatory change is inevitable, the sheer number and scale of legislative and regulatory changes to New Zealand’s employment, industrial relations and immigration frameworks over the past three years has been unprecedented.
As a result, small business owners across our sector have been overloaded with the responsibilities of adapting their businesses to abide by new and changing regulations, when their focus should be on their recovery from almost three years of hampered trading to ensure their business is rebuilt in a more resilient and sustainable way.
We celebrate the removal of this regulatory burden on cellar door operators, and we recommend a broad review of the regulatory environment for hospitality to ensure it is conducive to productivity and business growth. The Restaurant Association would welcome the opportunity to partner with the Government on such a project.
- Recommendation 1: that a broad review of the regulatory environment for hospitality is undertaken, to ensure it is conducive to productivity and business growth.
Hospitality and the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act 2012
We submit that the sale and supply of alcohol by on-licence venues carries a far smaller risk of harm to communities than off-licence venues, and recognition of this should be explicit in legislation.
We therefore believe that the fees regime under the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Fees) Regulations 2013 should be better targeted towards off-licence venues to support the objective of minimising alcohol-related harm.
In a practical sense, there are far fewer restrictions and regulations for off-licence holders in terms of the responsible sale and supply of alcohol when compared to on-licence holders.
For example, when serving alcohol in an on-licence venue, staff are bound by host responsibility requirements and must monitor intake to determine when they must stop service to prevent intoxication.
Alternatively at an off-licence venue, customers can purchase as much alcohol as they want, to take home and then consume as much as they want without any concerns.
Off-licence holders are clearly a greater risk to the objectives of the Act, and this should be better reflected in the licensing fees framework.
We submit that a Class 3 restaurant carries no greater risk of harm than BYO restaurants, theatres, cinemas and winery cellar doors. We therefore recommend a more fulsome review of the cost/risk rating of premises within the regulations to better reflect the actual risk of harm.