Venue Owner Dismisses "Knee-Jerk" Calls For Last Drinks Laws In Melbourne

A secret study into the intoxication levels at licensed venues around Melbourne has sparked talk of 'last drinks' laws to be introduced into the city and while the proposed legislation would be considered completely different to lockout laws, already in place in Sydney, the calls have already been slammed by a number of people. 

Speaking on 3AW today, Professor Peter Miller from Deakin University said his study suggests Melbourne should adopt a cut-off for drink service in venues, despite the city already working towards becoming a 24-hour district.

"What our study adds to the big body of evidence is that the later you go out, the drunker people are, the more trouble they get in to," Miller said.

"That supports last drinks laws, say 3am…rather than the lockouts which is a completely different thing altogether. 

"After midnight everything goes down. Every hour after that, things get worse."

However speaking to theMusic, Jon Perring, owner of popular Melbourne venue The Tote, has dismissed the study, saying that such a law is unnecessary at this time. 

"I don’t think there is any reason to have radical change," Perring said.

"I don’t think there’s a case for it."

Miller claims that since Newcastle pushed back closing times from 5am to 3.30am, it has experienced a doubling in liquor licenses, but Perring believes that if a venue is operating efficiently there should be no concern.

"Licenses are harder to operate…later at night than it is earlier in the evening," Perring continued. 

"If you’ve got licenses there, then the way that you operate needs to be tuned for the particular hours. If you’ve got good operators out there I don’t see any reason why you need a blanket knee-jerk ban on these things.

"If you’ve got good operators operating in that space and set all the benchmarks on how that’s meant to be, then you can sort the wheat from the chaff.

"That’s what the job of the regulators and the police is and that’s what they’re currently doing. I don’t think they’re failing at it."