Ten hospitality businesses will be fined after weekend compliance activities conducted by the Department of Customer Service found a host of serious breaches of the public health orders.
Inspectors from Liquor & Gaming NSW, SafeWork NSW and NSW Fair Trading visited 410 licensed venues and other hospitality premises, issuing $50,000 in penalty infringement notices for breaches of COVID safety.
These fines are additional to the four already issued by Liquor & Gaming, bringing the total number of fines issued by the Department of Customer Service to $70,000.
These ten pubs, clubs, cafes and restaurants will be fined $5,000 each:
- Mapo Galbi Korean BBQ- Gosford
- Yai Thai- Gosford
- Thai Thyme- Erina
- Hero Sushi- Erina
- Heart 2 Heart- Merrylands
- Master Hot Pot- Auburn
- Tamworth Service Club- Tamworth
- Greyhound Social Club Ltd- Yagoona
- Hurlstone Park Hotel- Hurlstone Park
- Kingswood Hotel- Kingswood
Most of the breaches related to not having a COVID-19 Safety Plan, non-compliant record keeping and a lack of appropriate physical distancing.
Liquor & Gaming is today working with NSW Police after receiving footage of a long queue of pubgoers waiting to enter Killara’s Greengate Hotel.
Executive Director of Compliance, Peter Dunphy, said it’s reckless that that any business would put the community at risk of COVID infection and jeopardise people’s jobs and livelihoods.
“It beggars belief that anyone would want to eat, drink and mingle, shoulder to shoulder with others during a pandemic,” Mr Dunphy said.
“On Friday the mandatory COVID safety measures were expanded from pubs to cover all hospitality venues and that message was communicated loud and clear.
“Pubs, clubs, bars, casinos, cafes and restaurants are high risk for COVID transmission. They are subject to public health order conditions specifically designed to keep them open and keep our communities safe.
“It is public knowledge that COVID clusters have spread rapidly at restaurants and jumped from suburb to suburb. The measures have not been taken in vain – they are vital protections for workers and customers.
“We all need to play it safer – businesses as well as customers.”
The NSW Government also announced yesterday that in addition to hospitality premises, gyms will be subject to new public health orders from Saturday 1 August at 12:01am.
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“You never know who is filming or taking photos or when police and inspectors might visit your business,” Mr Dunphy said.
COVID safety breaches can be reported to NSW Police. Liquor & Gaming, SafeWork and Fair Trading conduct uniformed and undercover inspections of licensed venues and can issue on the spot fines or temporarily close businesses where necessary.
