2.5 Intoxication and the law
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The NSW liquor laws state that licensees and staff must ensure that patrons do not become intoxicated. An intoxicated person cannot be admitted or allowed to remain in a licensed venue, nor can they be served liquor. So how do you recognise the signs of intoxication and what are your RSA obligations? |
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Peter Freeman |
Peter Freeman from OLGR explains what officers are looking for in regard to signs of intoxication.
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When officers conduct covert operations throughout venues, the intoxicated person that creates the offence, is what a normal person would view to be completely over and above the normal intoxicated state. That is to say that a normal person would look across and see someone staggering, asleep, falling off his chair—that is the type of person that the officers are looking for when conducting covert operations, in terms of intoxication. It is not what the general public would know as having a good time on licensed premises and consuming a number of alcoholic drinks. So there is some comfort there to the industry that it is not a narrow view, it is a broad view of the level that constitutes the definition of intoxication. |
Intoxication defined
The Act states that a person is intoxicated if:
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the person’s speech, balance, coordination or behaviour is noticeably affected, and
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it is reasonable, in the circumstances, to believe that the affected speech, balance, coordination or behaviour is the result of the consumption of liquor.
The Director General, Department of Trade and Investment, Regional Infrastructure and Services must issue guidelines to further assist the industry to determine whether a person may be intoxicated. You need to read and understand these guidelines.
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Fact sheets can be found on http://www.olgr.nsw.gov.au/liquor_fact_sheets.asp Under ‘Guidelines’ click on ‘Intoxication Guidelines’. |
Intoxication laws
Licensees and staff must ensure that patrons do not become intoxicated. If an intoxicated person is found in a venue the licensee is liable for the offence of permitting intoxication on their premises. This offence can apply regardless of whether the intoxicated person is still drinking alcohol on the licensed premises.
There is no statutory defence for the offence of serving liquor to an intoxicated person. The onus is on the licensee and staff to remove an intoxicated person immediately.
Under the NSW liquor laws, licensees and staff must follow these prescribed steps to avoid enforcement for permitting intoxication:
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refuse to serve the intoxicated person any more alcohol
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ask the intoxicated person to leave the premises
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contact, or attempt to contact, the police for assistance in removing the person
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or all other reasonable steps to prevent intoxication.
Licensees must also be able to prove that the intoxicated person did not consume alcohol on their licensed premises.
Management, staff, club directors, volunteers and other patrons can be prosecuted if they are found supplying liquor to an intoxicated patron. Fines of up to $11,000 apply but police and compliance officers also have the option of issuing penalty notices of $1100.
Preventing intoxication
Licensed venues must serve free drinking water and keep water available at all times. Venues may also adopt the following reasonable steps to prevent intoxication, including:
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ensuring compliance with all regulatory requirements
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providing training to staff in implementing the venue’s responsible serving house policy (in addition to mandatory RSA training)
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not conducting promotions or entertainment likely to encourage liquor abuse
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having quality food available whenever liquor is served
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actively encouraging the consumption of food and water.
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Lyn Humphreys |
Lynn Humphreys, Licensee, outlines some practical steps taken by her venue to prevent intoxication.
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Practical steps, I guess apart from observation and just being out and about and knowing who’s in the venue, we also have our house policy that means that we do have food available at all times, that we have water available at all times, we have a water cooler as well as if anybody comes to the bar and asks for a glass of water it’s free, of course, as is required. We also have a water cooler in the venue that people can access at any time so that even if the bar is very busy people don’t have to wait in line to get a water, they can just go straight over the water cooler and access that. We obviously have a range of different drink styles available so non-alcoholic drinks, low alcoholic drinks, mid-strength drinks are available. At certain times of the week, certain times of the day or the evening, we have drink restrictions that we put into practice, so on a Friday night, for instance, where we have a capacity crowd, it’s difficult for the staff to actually see past the first three rows of people at the bar that are wanting drinks, so they’re not in a position to be able to see who those drinks are going back to if there is a shout of drinks, so we have a policy that we don’t serve shots or we don’t serve doubles and we don’t serve jugs after a certain time. |
