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HUNTER bottle shop managers say new mandatory closing times will punish the wrong people and have no effect on limiting alcohol-related violence and crime.
Premier Barry O'Farrell announced a number of new state-wide alcohol measures yesterday in response to widespread community outcry over the recent deaths of Sydney teenagers Daniel Christie and Thomas Kelly and a number of other late-night assaults in the Sydney CBD.
Among the raft of legislative changes, Mr O'Farrell announced all bottle shops across the state would close at 10pm, a measure already in place in the Newcastle CBD and Hamilton on Friday and Saturday nights.
The Newcastle Herald spoke to more than a dozen Newcastle bottle shop managers yesterday who argued the majority of late-night customers were made up off hospitality staff and emergency workers on their way home from work.
The Northern Star Hotel's adjoining bottle shop trades until midnight from Sunday to Thursday and is believed to be the latest opening in the Hunter.
Hotel manager John Ramplin said the Beaumont Street pub holds a hotel licence, as opposed to a general bar licence, and is allowed to sell alcohol off the premises until midnight.
"We have regular customers who know we're open and drop in on their way home from work," he said.
"These people are chefs, service station attendants and waitresses looking for a beer after work, not the people responsible for alcohol-related violence or anti-social behaviour.
"Our main issue is that 10pm is too early, we stand to lose about 20 per cent trade between the hours of 10 and midnight."
Mr Ramplin said the pub had already encountered problems due to the late-night restrictions on Friday and Saturday night.
"This is going to cause a lot of dramas, the main reason being that people won't be able to take alcohol off the premises after 10pm," he said.
"We've encountered it already on Friday and Saturday nights when we've had people in the restaurant enjoying a bottle of wine with dinner and when they go to leave they can't take it home with them.
"They have to either leave it behind or drink it before they go, and if they do that then you can encounter problems with DUI [driving under the influence]."
