QHA Review January 2018

LEGAL MATTERS with Curt Schatz
DETACHED BOTTLESHOPS – LEASE ISSUES
QHA REVIEW | 38
This month I thought it topical to touch on a number of
issues relating to detached bottleshops (DBSs), from
both a compliance and legal perspective. Many of you
will operate bottleshops detached from your pubs in
shopping centres or other retail complexes, which are
owned by third party landlords. It’s important to ensure
that your rights are appropriately protected with that
landlord, and that there is clarity under the terms of the
DBS lease in relation to your liquor licence.
RETAIL SHOP LEASES ACT
The Retail Shop Leases Act provides a number of
protections to tenants in Queensland in an effort to
enable landlords and tenants to negotiate on a similar
footing for these tenancies, and offset the power
imbalance held by large property trusts and shopping
centre investment funds over their smaller tenants.
The Retail Shop Lease legislation is constantly
changing and adapting to reflect modern practice in
lease negotiation, and make negotiation and dispute
processes more streamlined and efficient. Recent
changes have installed the Queensland Civil and
Administrative Tribunal as the appropriate forum to
hear retail shop disputes, and have also reduced the
scope for landlords to claim outgoings such as land
tax, and other costs including those of the landlord’s
mortgagee, from tenants.
While there are a number of helpful fact sheets
available from the government which set out the
recent changes to the legislation, as this is a fluid and
ever-evolving area of law, there is no replacement for
top quality advice in these matters. The regulatory
requirements, and value of your liquor licences, make
this a particularly important issue for our industry and
it’s vital to ensure that a landlord does not overstep
the mark.
OLGR REQUIREMENTS
As we know, operating a bottleshop requires a number
of applications and approvals from the OLGR, ranging
from the initial application for the bottleshop, to
relocations, changes in trading hours, and changes of
licensed area.
The terms of your lease will provide for the rights and
obligations between the landlord and tenant, however
we have seen many leases in recent times which do
not make explicit reference to the role of the OLGR in
considering and approving applications, or which have
clearly been drafted by landlords to minimise the rights
of their tenants.
As not all OLGR applications are straightforward,
should there be difficulty in obtaining approval for your
application, this can create confusion between landlord
and tenant, or in worst-case scenarios, leave you on
the hook for lease payments for a shop which you are
not able to use as a bottleshop.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN IN RELATION
TO YOUR LEASE?
Many of you may want to re-locate your bottleshops
to different sites, and in addition we have had
various cases where licensees have wanted to pick
up the space of a vacant shop next to their existing
bottleshop and increase the area of the bottleshop in
the process.
In the case where a current lease is on foot, it is
obviously not possible to just terminate the lease
without the landlord’s consent. Generally, some form of
commercial arrangement can be negotiated.
In the case where the lease has expired and you are
simply there on a month to month tenancy, then it’s
normally possible to terminate the lease by giving