A Dunedin venue is one of five ordered to switch off their gaming machines for two and three days this week as the Gambling Commission makes it clear it will not tolerate owners breaking gambling laws.
The Eureka Trust was ordered to shut down its poker machines at Robbies Bar and Bistro in Macandrew Rd, South Dunedin, on Tuesday and yesterday after it failed to notify changes in venue operators and managers for three months last year.
Under the Gambling Act 2003, the venue licence-holder must inform the Secretary of Internal Affairs of a change in operators or management.
Eureka was found to have breached the rule at five of its operations, in Christchurch and Dunedin, for an extended period last year.
As a result, the trust's machines at Robbies Bars and Bistros at Belfast, Queenspark and Cranford in Christchurch were suspended for three days, and Robbies Bar and Bistro at South Dunedin and Bar 25, New Brighton, Christchurch, for two days.
The Department of Internal Affairs recommended shorter suspension periods, but in a decision released yesterday, chief gambling commissioner Peter Chin (also Dunedin mayor) said the commission considered these inadequate, and increased them to reflect its view of the seriousness of the breaches.
The commission agreed with the department's view that the breaches were a "systematic disregard of sections 69 and 71 of the Act and [reflected] a general culture of tardiness and neglect".
It was particularly concerned the Eureka Trust had suggested on appeal that licence-holders had some expectation non-compliance would have no real consequences.
The provision of information by a corporate society to the Secretary of Internal Affairs was essential if the department was to maintain the expected level of oversight over this sort of gambling.
The commission wished to make it clear non-trivial breaches of statutory and licence requirements should have real consequences and that there should be no expectation they would be imposed only after general or formal warnings, the decision said.
"Operators should not be surprised if even longer suspensions are imposed in the future."
