Drinking alcohol during or after a shift has long been common practice among hospitality workers, especially male hospitality workers. However, attitudes toward alcohol are starting to change. As part of VicHealth’s Men’s Risky Drinking Initiative, “Hospo drinking cultures” seeks to amplify these changes through a series of short animated documentaries. The animated documentaries feature personal experiences of how men are navigating and changing hospitality drinking cultures to facilitate low risk drinking, alternative ways of winding down after a shift, and care between hospitality workers. (Watch the conversations and also check out www.greaterrisk.com)

HOSPO (hospodrinkingcultures.org.au)

(As we understand it, the Liquor licensing is to eventually migrate to– Department of Justice, but under VGCCC in the interim)

A quick synoptic overview of some of the changes to alcohol availability to your community – No prizes for guessing it is not more restrictive.

The following Licence types have been granted extended trading hours from 11 pm to 1 am

• Restaurant and cafe
• General and late night (general).
• On-premises

This is a concern, as it ‘creeps’ the active alcohol serving hours up into the small hours of the morning, again – this is unnecessary and will not bode well for public health and safety. (Outdoor settings of these venues are excluded from these new trading hours – they must still stop serving at 11 pm)

Also, these venues are now able to provide an alcohol ‘take-away’ and home delivery option for their customers.

Restaurant and cafe licensees allowed limited amounts of takeaway/home delivered alcohol with an adult meal prepared on the licensed premises. Need to notify VGCCC of intent to supply.

• 1 x 750ml container of wine or,
• 6 x 375ml per container of beer, cider, or pre-mix

Other businesses seeking to ‘diversify’ are also being granted certain limited liquor licenses, so they can sell and deliver alcohol to their customers, i.e., Butchers Hamper, with condiments and alcohol included.

Again, increasing mechanisms to deploy more alcohol into the community, and more concerningly into the home environment where alcohol and other drugs are contributing to higher rates of familial and intimate partner violence, is not a positive step forward in community health, safety, and well-being.

Such previously interim moves saw increases in these toxic behaviours during Covid restrictions, and anecdata suggests the trend is holding even after Covid restrictions lifted. These further loosening of access and availability options on liquor will only continue to add to this disturbing up-tick in familial harms.

The following data from VGCCC outlines in more detail the changes.

• Extension of trading hours to 1am for certain licence categories | Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission (vcglr.vic.gov.au)

• Person placing order is over 18, person receiving order is over 18.

• Must verify ID of person buying and receiving home delivered alcohol.

However, Concerningly,

• First time to delivery at home is the person who places the order must receive the order. But future deliveries to that location no longer require verification.
• The delivery driver must check ID, but they do not have to record anywhere that they have ‘checked it.’

Minors and Alcohol Don't Mix - YouTube

Minors checklist_ (vcglr.vic.gov.au)

So, the questions ensue.

1. How can you prove ID has been sighted, let alone checked, other than the word of the delivery driver?
2. What is to stop the residents of the ‘first time’ delivery from exploiting the ‘no need to check further’ caveat to serve minors for future deliveries?

Some other key points:

• Planning Permit always supersede Liquor licence permission. So Local Government regulations in this space supersede Licence permissions. (This can be useful for community health and safety focused Councils to curtail some potential harms from the multiple ‘over-service’ options the under-regulated alcohol market can exploit.)
• Licensees are responsible for third party advertising of their products – Though the industry is still ostensibly self-regulating.

Alcohol is the most common principal drug of concern for people accessing treatment, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW’s) new report.
            

a)  Almost two in five (37%) treatment episodes for people accessing support for themselves were for alcohol, followed by
b)  amphetamines (24 %),
c) cannabis (19 %) and
d) heroin (4.6 %).

Between 2011–12 and 2020–21, alcohol was the most common principal drug of concern in treatment episodes provided to people for their drug use. This number has increased by 24 per cent, from approximately 67,000 episodes in 2011–12 to approximately 83,000 episodes in 2020–21

For complete Report

Highlights

• Heightened stress during the pandemic may lead to more college drinking.
• Cohorts of college students (N = 694) were surveyed before and during the pandemic.
• Stress was only linked to more alcohol use among those with low meaning in life.
• Meaning in one’s life protected against both general and COVID-specific stress.
• Alcohol interventions may be enhanced by promoting meaning and purpose in life.

 For complete Research

The new findings suggest a rise in cardiovascular risk even at alcohol consumption levels deemed “low risk” by national guidelines.

“The findings affirm that alcohol intake should not be recommended to improve cardiovascular health; rather, that reducing alcohol intake will likely reduce cardiovascular risk in all individuals, albeit to different extents based on one’s current level of consumption,”

 For complete research