Licences and permits: requirements and conditions
37 Licences and permits: requirements and conditions
In this section —
public body means —
an agency or an organisation as those terms are defined in the Public Sector Management Act 1994 section 3(1); or
a body, whether incorporated or not, or the holder of an office, that is established or continued for a public purpose under a written law and that, under the authority of a written law, performs a statutory function on behalf of the State; or
a local government, regional local government or regional subsidiary; or
any other body, or the holder of an office, post or position, that is prescribed as a public body for the purposes of this definition.
The Director must refuse an application for a licence or permit, or for approval of the transfer of a licence, unless the Director is satisfied —
if the applicant, or one of the applicants, is a natural person — that the applicant is a fit and proper person to be a licensee of the premises to which the application relates; and
if the applicant, or one of the applicants, is a body corporate or a public body —
that each person who occupies a position of authority in the body corporate is a fit and proper person to occupy that position in a body corporate that is a licensee of the premises to which the application relates; and
that the conduct of business at the premises is, or will be, personally supervised and managed in accordance with section 100;
and
if the applicant is an unincorporated body of persons who will not be joint holders of the licence —
that the persons have a common interest of a political, literary, sporting, social or other lawful nature and that the sale of liquor is incidental to, and not the primary purpose of, so associating; and
that a trustee is, or will be, appointed in accordance with section 35A;
and
that each person directly or indirectly interested in the application or in the business, or the profits or proceeds of the business, to be carried on under the licence or permit is a fit and proper person to be so interested; and
in the case of an application for —
an occasional licence; or
a special facility licence or an extended trading permit where the Director determines that the requirements, or some of the requirements, of paragraph (f) would not be appropriate,
that the liquor will not be sold or consumed in a place or on premises unsuitable for the purpose; and
except where paragraph (e) applies —
that the premises to which the application relates are, or when constructed will be, of a sufficient standard and suitable for the proper conduct of the business to be carried on there; and
as to the matters referred to in subsection (2); and
as to the matters referred to in any certificate required to be produced under section 39 or section 40.
Where the Director is to determine whether a person is a fit and proper person to occupy a position of authority in an association incorporated, or taken to be incorporated, under the Associations Incorporation Act 2015 or a public body, the Director may, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, assume that the person is a fit and proper person to occupy that position.
On any application the Director may require to be satisfied that any approval, consent or exemption required —
under the law relating to planning to permit the use of the premises for the sale of liquor; and
under any written law, for the carrying out of building work that is to be carried out before the licence or permit sought takes effect,
has been obtained.
The Director must refuse an application if the Director is satisfied that an undue degree of offence, annoyance, disturbance or inconvenience to —
persons who reside or work in the vicinity of the place or premises to which the application relates; or
persons in, or travelling to or from, an existing or proposed place of public worship, hospital or school,
would be likely to occur.
[(4) deleted]
Every licence, other than a club restricted licence or an occasional licence, is subject to the condition that the licensee occupies, and retains a right to occupy, the licensed premises to the exclusion of others, and —
the Director must refuse an application for the grant or removal of such a licence unless the Director is satisfied that the applicant can, or on the grant of the application will be enabled to, comply with that condition; and
if the licensee ceases to occupy the licensed premises, whether or not to the exclusion of others, the interest of the licensee in the licence terminates.
The condition referred to in subsection (5) continues to apply to a licence during any period that the operation of the licence is suspended.
[Section 37 amended: No. 12 of 1998 s. 23; No. 73 of 2006 s. 30; No. 56 of 2010 s. 9 and 39; No. 30 of 2015 s. 222; No. 26 of 2016 s. 66; No. 20 of 2025 s. 67 and 124(1).]
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