Licence to survive

A slip of paper that can be the difference between financial success and financial ruin.

For many businesses in the country, the end of March is the most crucial time of the year. More important than Christmas. More important, even, than the tourism high season.
The reason for all the wide-eyed anticipation is the annual granting of liquor licences. It’s also when the dreaded culling of liquor licences happens.
How important is it to an establishment to be granted this privilege by the Liquor Licence Authority? According to the business people we spoke to, that one slip of paper can be the difference between financial success and financial ruin.
The Authority has made no secret about its desire to reduce the number of licences from the current 150 to a more manageable number, in an effort to stem some of the societal problems caused by alcohol abuse. That process has already started, with 50 businesses potentially facing the chop.
As well, anyone who has applied for a new licence over the past six months has been forced to sit in limbo, waiting for a decision that will decide their future.
Are the restrictions fair? Is it right to blame the problem drinking on those who simply sell the product? Can a business hope to survive if it can’t serve alcohol?
Let’s find out.
The Retailer
A tour of the warehouse of CITC Liquor reveals stacks of colourful boxes featuring just as colourful product names. This is the mother ship when it comes to alcohol on Rarotonga, the place where restaurants and other outlets come to replenish their stock.
Store manager Fraser Nooroa says the store has to apply for an annual licence like any other outlet, but theirs falls into the category of off-premise sales. That still means there are regulations to follow, starting with keeping underage patrons off the premises.
“That’s one thing we tell our staff to make sure about,” Nooroa says. “These days, 16-year-olds look 18, so we make it clear to our staff that, if in doubt, check.”
The store’s hours of operation are also governed by the Liquor Licence Authority, but this is one area where there is no conflict. Allowed to be open until 9pm, CITC Liquor closes at 7 on Fridays and Saturdays, and 5pm the other four days.
Nooroa is in the unique position of being able to gauge what is being consumed on the island. He says where once beer – with Heineken being the king – once ruled the rock, wine has shown a steady increase in popularity.
“And it’s good wine, too,” he says. “We’re talking between $18 and $22 a bottle, which is quite good.”
Sales of RTDs (Ready to Drink) have also grown, even if these are considered in some countries to be more of a ‘girl drink’.
“There are a lot of energy drinks selling as well,” says Nooroa. “They have the guarana flavour in them, which gives you a bit more of an energy boost with the alcohol. We get a lot of bars buying those off us. We don’t make money off it, but it’s a good seller.”
Asked if he feels any obligation to advise his patrons to drink responsibly, Nooroa isn’t sure the store is the proper environment for such a message.
“Definitely, in a bar or restaurant, you’d need to,” he says. “But, as a retail outlet, it’s very hard to try to police that.”
Nooroa says CITC Liquor has never had a problem renewing its licence.
“We try not to abuse it or do anything to prevent us getting it,” he says.
The Newcomer
Brett Baudinet has felt the pain of not having a liquor licence. He didn’t much care for the sensation.
Baudinet is the owner of High Tide Bar & Grill, an establishment that went five months without a licence when it first opened. Even after it was granted permission to sell alcohol, the eatery had to successfully complete two three-month trial periods before a full-year licence was finally granted.
Baudinet says the problems started early, when rumours – all false, as it turned out – circulated that what he was actually constructing was not a restaurant but, rather, a nightclub where youngsters would wreak havoc until 5am. Those whispers spread like wildfire on the coconut wireless, causing the neighbours, and especially the nearby Catholic Cathedral, to raise the alarm.
“They just gave the wrong impression to everybody else,” says Baudinet. “The Liquor Licence Authority saw that as well.”
Which is why the High Tide spent nearly half a year watching potential customers beat a hasty retreat back down the stairs after being informed they couldn’t have a glass of beer or wine with their meal.
“We lost a lot of business from that,” Baudinet says. “And word got around to everybody else, so they did not actually come up. We ended up losing quite a lot of money during that period.”
Even with a full licence, the High Tide is still under restrictions, including one that requires it to close earlier than some of its nearby competition.
“Personally, I’d like a system set forward that businesses are given an equal licence, depending on where they are located,” Baudinet says. “Other people around town have got different licences with different hours. I don’t understand how they can treat High Tide differently to everyone else.”
Baudinet says if he’d been told at the start that his liquor licence was in jeopardy due to neighbourhood concerns, he wouldn’t have bothered to build the restaurant.
“(The Liquor Licence Authority) should have a system in place where they say, if you follow what you say you’re going to do, you will be granted your licence in the end,” he says. “They should have guidelines in which you need to provide the correct information to them before you start. And, if you follow all the guidelines they set forth to you, you will be granted a licence at the end.”
The Veteran
The Staircase Restaurant & Bar has gone 18 years without a serious breach of the regulations, and has a stack of liquor licences to prove it.
Owner Sisi Short says it helps to have only one entrance: it makes it easier to check for ID and turn away anyone who is underage.
“Also we do not let people in who’ve had an overindulgence of alcohol,” she says. “We make sure we don’t serve too much liquor to anyone who is having too much to drink.”
Short says she has noticed a stronger police presence around the club lately, but welcomes the attention.
“They’re more out now checking to make sure the clubs are not letting underage in,” she says. “We’re concerned also, as club owners, that young people do not consume alcohol.”
Short isn’t sure that cutting back as many as 50 liquor licences will solve the problem of alcohol abuse in the Cook Islands.
“It’s going to affect those people’s businesses,” she says. “They’re talking about keeping people here on this island and they’re going to find that 50 people – 50 businesses – could be leaving the country. On top of that, liquor licences are crucial to our economy. It’s for tourism.”
Short says the entire population needs to take responsibility when something like underage drinking becomes an epidemic.
“Maybe there are some other social issues we have to look into,” she says. “The whole country has to find some way to keep our teenagers active, instead of coming out and trying to get into clubs.”
It’s unfair, Short says, to point fingers at nightclubs and bars – and hold their liquor licences to ransom – at the first sign of alcohol abuse.
“I suppose you could say (the Liquor Licence Authority) is blackmailing you,” she says. “If they find someone underage at your club, they’re going to stop your liquor licence. That’s a big concern. That’s like a police state.”
The Hopeful
Approval from the neighbours? Tick. Construction completed? Tick. Existing liquor licence from another business? Tick.
An automatic licence, right?
Nice try.
Tokerau Turia watches tourists play a round on his Coco Putt mini-golf course and dreams of a day when he can serve them a cold adult drink after 18 holes in the hot Arorangi sun.
Turia, who already possesses a liquor licence for his Pawpaw Patch Restaurant & Bar, has applied twice for the right to sell alcohol at his newest venture. The first application landed in limbo when the Liquor Licence Authority suspended the granting of new licences late last year. His second application is currently under review.
“I am disheartened,” Turia says of the waiting game. “But I’m not disappointed because I know (the Authority members are) only doing their job, just like everyone else. It’s just one of those things where you just say to yourself, ‘Things will get better. Maybe they will say yes’. So you just hope.”
Turia understands part of the problem is that Coco Putt is looked at as a family attraction and, quite rightly, some parents may not want their children rubbing shoulders with drinkers.
“It is a family place,” Turia agrees, “but it’s not in a way of a pub or anything like that. This is a community-involved centre where people can come and enjoy. Not to get out of hand or go overboard. This place doesn’t attract drunks or party-goers.”
If he could have seen the future, would he have gone ahead with the project?
“I still would have done it,” Turia says. “It was more or less a dream of mine and to actually see it in reality now, it’s something I’ve achieved.
“To have the liquor licence would be a great asset for the business. I’m getting to the point where I’m scratching, trying to find the next dollar so I can pay for the next thing, to pay the bills.”
If he is rejected a second time, Turia plans to keep applying.
“I think it’s a patience game, really, to be honest,” he says. “Soon there will be enough people on the island to say, ‘Hey, look, these guys are OK. What’s going on? You can’t be denying them’.”
The Final Word
Reviewing 150 liquor licence renewal forms can take weeks, but that’s time well spent, according to Police Superintendant Taivero Isamaela, chairman of the Liquor Licence Authority.
“We are really looking at the conditions of each licence, to make sure they are all being fulfilled,” he says. “At the same time, we’re checking with police records to see what we have on record for those applicants who have been issued a licence before.”
Thirty licences had been renewed as of last week, while one has been declined to date. Isamaela has gone on record as saying there are too many licences on Rarotonga. He’d prefer that number be no more than 100.
“We see alcohol as one of the main causes of the problems we are having here in our nation,” he says. “The number of licences we have on Rarotonga is too high and the Authority is going to be very hard now. We have issued a lot of warnings to those people who have not abided by the conditions of their licence. I don’t think there will be any more warnings. From now on, any breaches, expect your licence to be cancelled.”
Isamaela says there is no guarantee any of the applications currently on hold since October will be approved.
“We will be looking at them, considering whether we can approve or not approve,” he says. “But that all depends on how many (existing) licences we decline.
“We have to look at a whole lot of things. The location of the applicant. Is he the only provider of liquor in that area, or there another liquor outlet right next door? In the past, this has not been considered but, right now, we have to consider that.”
Isamaela says people need to do their homework before starting a new business – they can’t just assume they will be granted a liquor licence. This includes checking with the Liquor Licence Authority and the neighbours. If those protocols are not followed, then the fault lies with the business owner, not the Authority, if the licence application fails.
“We have laws in this country that say there are guidelines that need to be followed,” says Isamaela. “The Authority follows those guidelines. Because, at the end of the day, the buck ends with us.
“If we give a licence without considering all the interests of the people in the surrounding areas, then we will be blamed.”

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