The beginning of a new year presents an excellent opportunity to check in on your compliance program to ensure your legislative requirements are being met.
If you’re a hospitality manager in NSW then this checklist, while not exhaustive, will put you in a terrific position to check the status of your existing statutory obligations:
NSW Liquor License Conditions
The NSW Government provides an online database where you can view all liquor licenses and their conditions including your own.
You can go to the Service NSW website and type in your licence name to view your license and any special conditions imposed.
This also presents another opportunity where you can see other competitor liquor licences, in order to see whether any opportunity exists for your business, to seize on any special conditions they may have imposed on their licences. ie. trading hours.
Should a competitor have different trading hours to you, your additional trading hours may pose an opportunity you haven’t considered in the past. Check it out!
If you have a special licence condition you believe is no longer valid, we have experience in assisting licensed premises in the process of removing licence conditions and encourage you to get in touch with us for advice.
NSW Trade Promotions and Lotteries
The Department of Fair Trading NSW currently regulates the conduct of games of chance, trade promotions and lotteries.
This is an area where many licensed premises come undone in their compliance program, due to the absence of information and the absence of notifications of expiry on existing permits.
Details about games of chance, trade promotions and lotteries can be viewed here.
If you would like to check on the current status of a game of chance, trade promotion or lottery permit, you can search here.
If you would like to apply for a permit to undertake a game of chance, trade promotion or lottery, you can apply here.
Should you require assistance writing terms and conditions and preparing online applications for your existing promotional activities please feel free to contact us.
NSW Liquor Licence Compliance Checklists
With the recent rollback of the NSW Lockout Laws, we anticipate greater monitoring by the regulator of licensed premises compliance, as a means to minimise any risk arising from such a rollback.
The regulator has prepared self-audit checklists with an expectation that licensees will use them to ensure c continuity of their compliance with existing legislation.
These checklists can be viewed here.
We acknowledge the demands placed on Licensees when it comes to compliance, however, should there be any hiccup with your existing compliance program, such as a sign being missing all falling off the wall, there is a greater chance in our opinion the regulator or any judiciary will be far more lenient should you have taken steps including regular self-auditing, to prevent issues of non-compliance.
We also recommend you subscribe to the Liquor and Gaming NSW e-newsletter, which provides regular updates regarding regulator activity and legislative reforms.
Should you wish to enhance your compliance program by way of a comprehensive independent audit, then we encourage you to contact us for a proposal.
Employment Compliance and the Fairwork Act
Having consulted to clients concerning matters impacting employees for many years, I have always found the Fairwork Ombudsman Website to be one of the best Government websites when it comes to content.
The Fairwork Ombudsman website has ample free information, to ensure you are exercising your obligations under the Fairwork Act.
Of particular note is the free templates and best practices e-guides they provide which can be downloaded as word documents and provide step by step instructions on all issues pertaining to employment.
I love to use these templates because, in my opinion, the use of templates contained on the Fairwork Ombudsman website will demonstrate to any judiciary, should you be unfortunate enough to be brought before, your commitment to compliance when it comes to employee-related issues.
Should you have any issue relating to employee compliance, please don’t hesitate to get in contact.
Other helpful websites with great templates, guides and information for businesses include:
