Who needs SIX liquor outlets?

Dumburra Avenue Cellars in Dumburra Avenue, Drysdale has asked the Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation to grant it a license for a 'packaged liquor outlet'. Granting the license will give the area its sixth liquor outlet.

The Drysdale & Clifton Springs Community Association Inc. (DCSCA) objects to this application because granting the license would have an adverse impact on the amenity of the area and on the objector.

1. Granting the license would have an adverse impact on the amenity of the area

1.1       Granting the license would reduce the overall amenity of the area significantly. The proposal would increase local traffic (on roads unsuitable for it); it would increase the noise of customers and their vehicles; and the proposed floodlit signage would change the area’s character. Further, liquor outlets are often associated with increased levels of rowdy and anti-social behaviour, reducing the area’s amenity still further.

1.2       Granting the license would exacerbate existing problems with traffic safety. The proposal would increase traffic in the area, but Whitcombes Road - the access road to Dumbarra Avenue - is unsuitable for heavy traffic. Its edges are unsealed and muddy, so increased traffic is likely to threaten pedestrian safety and to create more motor vehicle accidents. Further, the intersection of Whitcombes Road and Portarlington Road is dangerous already, so increased traffic in Whitcombes Road will only increase that danger.
1.3       Granting the license would exacerbate existing problems with parking. Cars are frequently – and inappropriately – parked on the vacant blocks beside the shop site. As these blocks are built on, cars will be forced to park elsewhere in the area. Each completed block will have one or two cars associated with it; and there will probably also be two employees' cars per shop – and that takes no account of customers’ vehicles! The result would be that customers to the bottle shop will have no alternative but to park inappropriately and illegally.

1.4       Granting the license would create new problems with rubbish removal. At present, all rubbish from the shops is collected in bins placed on Whitcombes Road. A bottle shop will increase the amount of rubbish significantly, as packaging is discarded – perhaps responsibly, perhaps just thrown to the ground. The increased volume of rubbish will require trucks to remove it, but the application fails to address the issue of rubbish at all.

1.5       Granting the license would create a sixth liquor outlet in the area. The area is well served by liquor outlets already: a bottle shop in each of the two Woolworths stores, a bottle shop in the Aldi Store, another at the Drysdale Hotel and a fifth in Pinaroo Avenue. Significantly, this license is being considered at a time when Woolworths is phasing out the use of cash in its bottle shops, because of the recent prevalence of robberies in its bottle shops. Granting this license would only increase the likelihood of such robberies in the area.

 2. Granting the license would have an adverse impact on the amenity of the objector.

This objection comes not from an individual objector but from a collective objector - local residents, represented by DCSCA.

2.1       Granting the license would reduce local residents’ quiet enjoyment of their homes significantly. The proposal would increase local traffic (on roads unsuitable for it); it would increase the noise of customers and their vehicles; and the planned floodlit signage would change the area’s character. Further, liquor outlets are often associated with increased levels of rowdy and anti-social behaviour, reducing residents’ quiet enjoyment of their homes still further.

2.2       Granting the license would expose children daily to materials promoting liquor. Several school buses pick-up and drop-off each day in Whitcombe’s Road, directly opposite the proposed bottle shop. So granting the license would expose children every day to materials promoting liquor, which is clearly inappropriate. There is growing concern among experts on addiction as well as the general public about the ubiquitous nature of liquor promotion, which presents liquor as a normal, routine and risk-free part of everyday life; and concerns are also growing about the decreasing age at which children are experimenting with liquor. Granting this particular license would fly in the face of all those concerns.