Gantley’s was hauled before the committee — Lyal Cocks, Phil Jones and Chris Cooney — on Monday, amid concerns about seven reports of excessive noise stemming from the historic Arthurs Point pub since the new owners took over, on December 1. All complaints appeared to come from the same household.
However, operations manager Courtney Cook told the committee the first, on November 30 last year, occurred the day before the pub changed hands — previously run by Cargo, Euan ‘Urb’ Paterson, Cook and Katie Murray took over on December 1.
She detailed each of the noise complaints, including one occasion, on May 14, when two incidents were reported within 15 minutes of each other, and two Cougar Security staff arrived at the same time.
One reported a "verbal warning" was issued, while the other said no action was taken.
"Both of these cannot be correct," she told the committee on Monday. "This is an example of the concerns we have about the voracity of the issues being reported to council ... by security staff."
Maintaining they’d never received a verbal warning, Cook was "surprised" to receive a formal warning — later retracted by the council.
She also wasn’t aware a subsequent ‘excessive noise direction’ had been issued, despite being the duty manager on the night of the alleged incident, until she read the report.
Gantley’s was represented by lawyers Tanya Surrey and Jayne Macdonald — the latter told the committee the applicant had never been told they’d been issued with a warning of any kind, had good noise mitigation measures, a noise management plan, and there were no public submissions made about noise from the premise.
"We would say this series of noise complaints were more of a one-off, related to a particular household, rather than something that shows there’s a greater concern with noise that’s being generated by the premise."
The committee granted applications for both an on- and off-licence, noting they would come up for renewal in one year.
