A Queenstown police appeal against the Queenstown Lakes District Licensing Agency's granting of a special licence for Revolver to host a music festival over the Easter weekend has been declined by the Liquor Licensing Authority.
Judge Edward Unwin said the agency's decision to grant the special licence with conditions was unimpeachable, following the hearing on September 1.
However, the judge and panel members Judith Moorhead and Dr Jacqueline Horn were concerned about the venue's ability to sell alcoholic drinks for more than half of the 15 hours of the three-night festival.
Judge Unwin noted in the authority's decision the Queenstown Lakes District Licensing Agency granted special licences with "more liberal" trading hours to three other licensees for Easter music festivals over the last two years.
The only difference between the applications was the previous grants did not normally host music festivals.
The panel could not find anything in the Sale of Liquor Act that disqualified an entertainment venue from obtaining a special licence to host the same types of promotions that were normally held there.
"The real issue when considering such an application is to question whether the effect of the special licence is to enable the drinkers to continue to socialise in the same way that they normally do when the premises are legitimately open for business," the judge wrote.
"In this case the inability to allow patrons to enter the premises after 10pm is a very effective way of ensuring that only music fans will be present and that there will be no migration of drinkers."
Judge Unwin said another consideration was Revolver should not be trading under a tavern-style licence. If it had applied for a different style, it probably would not have needed to apply for a special licence for the festival.
Conditions imposed by the agency included Revolver providing free food, tickets being purchased before 6pm on the first festival day and no new patrons allowed in after 10pm on the first night.
