An on-licence and off-licence renewal application for the St Kilda Tavern was heard by Dunedin’s district licensing committee on Thursday.
It was opposed by police, the medical officer of health delegate and a licensing inspector.
Alcohol harm prevention officer Sergeant Steve Jones, of Dunedin, said in his report the applicant company’s sole director, Darshpreet Singh, owned a number of premises under different companies.
The St Kilda Tavern was his first venture into the South Island, and Sgt Jones raised questions about the relationship between Darshpreet Singh and the tavern’s former owner, Deepinder Singh — whose involvement in the business was ‘‘concerning and still unclear’’.
At the hearing, counsel for the applicant John Young said police’s opposition was ‘‘without proper foundation’’, ‘‘based on speculation and tenuous inference’’ and most of their evidence did not relate to the applicant’s company.
The tri-agency opposition appeared to be led by police.
‘‘It seems to have fallen out of this concern that Deepinder Singh, the previous owner, is somehow still controlling the business, and my client will say unequivocally that’s not the case.’’
Deepinder Singh, whom Darshpreet Singh used to play soccer with years ago in Auckland, was not involved in the business and there was ‘‘absolutely no evidence’’ the two were connected, Mr Young said.
His client had been an ‘‘open book’’ and done his best to provide police with all information requested, even when the ‘‘normal red flags’’ were not present.
Darshpreet Singh told the committee, while he was based in Auckland at present, he visited all of his venues once or twice a month and had been to the St Kilda Tavern ‘‘quite a few times’’ since taking it over.
He planned to incorporate an upstairs commercial kitchen into the business — for which there was ‘‘good potential’’ and could accommodate about 60 people.
While he said there was a ‘‘point of argument’’ about the links between Darshpreet Singh and the previous owner, Sgt Jones doubled-down on his submission.
Darshpreet Singh had initially claimed no association with the previous owner, but confirmed there was during a meeting with agencies, he said.
‘‘They had some friendship, they had some other link undisclosed, but that’s definitely something worthy of the committee’s attention.’’
The application ‘‘fails on many fronts’’ and Darshpreet Singh had unsuitable character, a lack of candour and was negligent in operating the premises, he said.
Much of police’s evidence was subject to a non-publication order and part of the hearing was excluded to the public.
Medical officer of health delegate Aaron Whipp said he still had concerns about Darshpreet Singh’s ability to operate the tavern remotely by relying on employees on site to manage it.
‘‘You’re only coming down two days out of a month.
‘‘That’s not a lot of times for you to actually have your feet on the ground of the operation and see what’s happening in the operation.’’
