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• Published date: 01 June 2021

There is to hopefully be an artisan food and drink festival in July, at the Te Ahu Centre in Kaitaia. We have been asked to have a stall and supply tastings of our table wines.

Noting difficulties before, I applied and paid for a special licence extra days in advance. The FNDC now want me to supply a menu of three substantial meals, and low-alcohol beverage, not the water that we will have.

This is a food festival; there will be many stalls with food, but I doubt if there will be meals as such, so our being there is unfortunately looking tenuous.

It seems that it is getting harder to do business in the Far North. I went to a high-powered government meeting in Rāwene where they said it would be easier to do business in the future, but that has not yet come to pass. Hope I live to see it!

Eric Shackleton

Waitapu Estate Vineyard

The Far North District Council’s senior communications adviser, Ken Lewis, responds: The council is supportive of community events like this. We often assist with funding, and, wherever possible, will do what we can to help ensure these events proceed. However, we do have statutory and legislative obligations to meet under the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act 2012.

Mr Shackleton indicated he would like an on-site special licence. This permits the applicant to trade in the same manner as an on-licence outlet, ie. a tavern. An on-licence operator must provide food, water and non/low-alcohol options at all times. The special licence application requires that the applicant provide information on whether these options will be available at the event.

These were not included in the application from Mr Shackleton.

Special licence applications are sent to the police and medical officer of health to inquire into and produce a report to the District Licensing Committee (DLC), which makes decisions about special licence applications. In this case, the medical officer of health has requested additional information be provided by the applicant regarding food and low-alcohol options.

The council has been trying to assist by speaking with the event organiser so that the required information can be obtained.

Section 142 of the act includes criteria that the DLC must consider when issuing a special licence. This includes food, low-alcohol options and water.

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