Licensees and staff are responsible for preventing patrons from becoming unduly intoxicated. You must ensure alcohol is served, supplied and promoted in a way that maintains a safe environment in and around your venue, and preserves the amenity of the nearby area. Show Refusing service and preventing undue intoxicationYou must put systems in place that ensures staff refuse service to, and prevent drinking of alcohol by, persons who are unduly intoxicated. Refusing service can be difficult - even more so when trying to reason with a person who may be irrational, argumentative or aggressive. It is much easier to prevent a patron from becoming unduly intoxicated than to manage it after the fact. Monitoring and assessing patronsLicensees and permit holders are responsible for putting a control system in place to monitor and assess people in, and trying to enter, your premises, for signs of undue intoxication and disorderly conduct. Control systems should cover premises entry, bar serveries and consumption areas. You are expected to tailor controls to each licensed venue you operate. For example, the less open the layout of the premises, the more roaming staff members may be required to monitor for unduly intoxicated patrons. Lighting, noise levels and physical layout must also be considered. Training staff to control undue intoxicationYou must ensure there are adequate procedures and levels of staff training and instruction, to support the control systems in your venue. As a licensee or permit holder, you will increase your own risk of being penalised for offences relating to unduly intoxicated and disorderly persons if you fail to properly implement and monitor control systems at your venue. Strategies to prevent undue intoxicationFollowing are some common sense strategies that can be easily implemented:
This list is by no means exhaustive and licensees and staff should share their own successful strategies for preventing patrons from becoming unduly intoxicated. Providing drinking waterMaking drinking water available to patrons is essential to minimising harm and intoxication. Providing drinking water is the responsibility of every licensee. Under the Liquor Regulation 2002, it is mandatory for commercial hotel licensees, community club licensees, commercial other (bar) licensees, licensees catering a commercial public event and any licensee who trades after 12 midnight to provide cold drinking water free of charge to any patron who requests it, at any time the premises is trading. All other licensees must make cold drinking water available either free-of-charge or at a reasonable cost to patrons when the premises is trading. Also consider...
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