Concerns restaurant licences are contributing to rise in anti-social behaviour
A Newcastle cafe owner says she is worried an increase in the number of venues now serving alcohol under restaurant licences is leading to a rise in anti-social behaviour.
Fiona Richards says in the three months she has been operating her cafe in Perkins Street, she has had windows and doors smashed, planter boxes damaged and tomato sauce sprayed across the front of the cafe.
This week a concrete bench was dragged across the footpath in front of her cafe.
Ms Richards said licensed venues in the CBD are subject to strict conditions for service of alcohol, but she is concerned restaurants are not getting the same scrutiny from licensing police.
"There needs to be stricter guidelines for it," she said.
"If you're going to be a bar and your primary service is alcohol then it needs to be that way.
"There's a lot of restaurants going up around here that say they're predominantly food, but you find their primary service is alcohol."
"So it is affecting us, because no one is controlling how much people are drinking."
CBD resident, Kate Elderton said she has also noticed an increase in drunken violence and anti-social behaviour in the city.
Ms Elderton said Newcastle does not need a return to the level of violence it was seeing before the city's lock outs and alcohol restrictions were introduced.
"Well we thought those days were behind us, now the proliferation of DAs being attempted and submitted to council, we're going back to the bad old days," she said.
"What I am concerned about is they're using the ruse of saying they're going to be a restaurant and they're morphing into pubs."
Newcastle local area police commander, Superintendent John Gralton said it is a misconception that restaurants do not have to abide by the same rules as other licensed venues.
"Premises with both restaurants and primary service of alcohol licences are subject to the same conditions that are placed on all of those late trading hotels across the city.
"So things like no shots after 10:00pm, limits of drinks per person, responsible service of alcohol are certainly applied to those restaurants."
But he admits the city's four licensing police have a lot of venues to manage.
"I suppose it's a difficult one - we've got 196 on-licences, four small bars, four general bars, 75 hotels, 52 clubs, and 45 bottle shops, as well as 17 producers across Newcastle.
"We do target our resources, but if we're having a particular problem on a particular strip, with a particular restaurant, we certainly will apply the necessary attention."
Superintendent Gralton said although crime statistics have been improving steadily, he admits there has been a spike in anti-social behaviour in the city this month.
"We did have a bit of a wild weekend, and also had a little spike in anti-social behaviour this December," he said.
"But we're really not seeing any grave issues in terms of malicious damage, but we're encouraging people to report it so we can be aware of it and get on top of it."