Venues welcome PoPE’s end
By Ashley Devine
Hotels and venues that offer any form of live entertainment will soon not need to apply for a special licence.
Among the State Government’s new planning laws approved in the Legislative Council on June 17 are the Place of Public Entertainment (PoPE) licence amendments.
The licensee of Glebe’s Toxteth Hotel is among those who will be glad to see the end of a regime that required venues to apply for a separate PoPE licence for each event at a cost of $500 per licence. Each licence also had the potential of costing an extra $10,000 for a noise impact assessment.
Removal of PoPE will free up venues to hold events such as trivia and poker nights, or certain kinds of live music.
The Toxteth was recently fined $600 and forced to cancel its trivia night after one resident made a noise complaint. ‘We can’t put on a meeting or a 21st without a separate PoPE licence for each event,’ licensee Justin Carroll said.
A spokesperson for Planning Minister Frank Sartor said: ‘The proposal removes the definition of a ‘place of public entertainment’, preventing a local council from potentially requiring an additional (development) application for even minor forms of live entertainment.’
Balmain MP Verity Firth said nobody wanted their local pub to have to lodge a development application just to have a guitarist in the corner.
‘Especially when that same venue could install a big screen television to play sporting events with similar amenity impacts without lodging a DA,’ she said. ‘The proposed legislation will concentrate on what’s really important – the safety and amenity of patrons and locals.’
The planning laws went to the upper house before parliament goes into its winter recess. Days before the vote, three members of the Legislative Council had yet to state their position on the Environment Planning and Assessment Amendment Bill of 2008: Robert Brown and Roy Smith of the Shooters Party and Fred Nile of the Christian Democratic Party. Any one of them could tip the balance.
All three voted for the Bill.
