Wellington Council has unanimously voted to amend its Alcohol Fees Bylaw to increase how much some alcohol licence holders pay to obtain or renew their licence.
Wellington Mayor Andy Foster says the licencing cost will not change because of the increase in fees, but the level that the industry contributes to the cost of licensing will increase.
“We had planned to recover about 71% of the cost of alcohol licence applications and annual fees, and the rest (29%) was subsidised by ratepayers,” he says. “We agreed we needed to reduce the amount that ratepayers were paying towards alcohol licensing.
“Obviously COVID also had an impact on the level of cost recovery in the last year, including the fee reductions made by the Council to support the hospitality industry in Wellington.”
Chair of the Pūroro Rangaranga | Social, Cultural and Economic Committee Councillor, Jill Day, says the increase in fees will only be applicable to high and very-high risk rated licences.
“Licences categorised as high risk are on-licence venues open after 2am and off-licences open after 10pm,” she says.
“The application and annual fees for high risk licences will go up by $1000, while fees for very-high risk licences will increase by $2000.”
There will be no increase in fees for the very-low, low, and medium risk licence holders.
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