What has to change to stop liquor barons exploiting their workers?

Friday, 7 August 2020

Liquor baron Ravi Arora has been accused of exploiting migrant workers. (First published August 2020.)

How is an employer like Ravi Arora, with such an extensive history of mistreating his staff able to continue operating? A legal precedent is being blamed. But some think it’s been misinterpreted. National Correspondent Steve Kilgallon reports.

Community groups are queueing up behind the Labour Inspectorate in a bid to overturn a legal precedent and challenge the liquor licences of rogue bottle store owners accused of exploiting migrant workers.

A series of store owners Stuff has reported on over the past year may now face expensive legal battles to keep their businesses open.

Groups in Auckland, Tokoroa and Christchurch are all working on plans to oppose licences, while the Labour Inspectorate says it plans to collaborate with local licensing inspectors and Police to also challenge licences on ‘good character’ grounds where they have evidence of worker exploitation.

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Ravi Arora’s Bottle-O in Pt Chevalier, Auckland. His wife faces a struggle to gain a full licence for her branch in Lincoln.

Until now, a 2016 ruling by the Alcohol Regulatory and Licensing Authority (ARLA), the national body which hears appeals against local licensing committee rulings, has stopped licensing authorities from taking into account how bottle store owners treat their staff when considering licences.

Former employees of Rotorua Bottle-O liquor stores allege they are owed a combined $300,000 in lost wages.

“The Inspectorate doesn't agree with that decision,” said Labour Inspectorate national manager Stu Lumsden. “We want to make further attempts at getting the liquor licensing authorities to decline people on the basis of good character.

“We are not talking someone who doesn’t keep good wage and time records because of poor business practice, but situations where we believe workers are being exploited we think we have full grounds to claim that does impact on their ability to hold a licence to sell alcohol.”

That could be bad news for Bottle-O barons Ravi and Anuradha Arora, who must apply for a full licence for a new Christchurch branch owned by Anuradha before October 3 this year.

Stuff has reported on Arora’s chequered history of failed Labour inspections, settlements with former employees, and fresh claims from seven former staff that they were exploited while working for him for as little as $7 an hour.

In Auckland, the pressure group Communities Against Alcohol Harm confirmed it would “absolutely” look to oppose Arora’s liquor licences as they came up for renewal.

Arora will not be alone in that struggle.

In Tokoroa, community activist Colin Bridle has lodged an objection to the licence renewal of the local Thirsty Liquor store, owned by Taranjeet and Jaspreet Singh Janda after Stuff reported allegations of migrant exploitation by the brothers.

In Christchurch, bottle stores with links to under-fire owners Hardeep Singh and Harjeet Singh are due for renewal in the next six months and it’s understood a network of community activists in the city will oppose their licences.

THE PROBLEMATIC PRECEDENT

The issue has always been a 2016 ARLA ruling from a case called Sharma and Sons.

Bottle store owner Ravi Arora, outside a court hearing earlier this week. He owns a chain of bottle stores likely to now face challenges when their licences are up for renewal.

Auckland licensing inspector Arthur Wilkinson had applied to cancel the licences of the Sharmas, who owned a string of South Auckland pubs and bottle stores after the ERA ruled they had broken various labour laws around payment of an employee.

Section 105 (1)(b) of the Act says a licensing authority must consider the 'suitability of the applicant' and Section 280 allows for an inspector to apply for a licence cancellation on the grounds that 'the conduct of the licensee is such as to show that he or she is not a suitable person to hold the licence'.

But in the 2016 case, Judge Kevin Kelly said the Sharma's employment law breaches didn't impact their ability to responsibly and safely supply alcohol.

That ruling has dissuaded liquor licensing inspectors from fighting to cancel the licences of liquor store owners who have exploited migrant workers. Lumsden has previously described the decision as a “real concern” for authorities.

This week, Lumsden said the Inspectorate believed that exploiting workers did cause harm – there was a health and safety risk and a mental health risk for staff working long hours for poor pay.

Activist Colin Bridle has challenged a Thirsty Liquor licence in Tokoroa.

Auckland council’s manager of alcohol licensing, Peter Knight, said his officers had to assess suitability on the risk of alcohol harm from the licence. Employment issues were not “currently a qualifying reason to decline an application,” Knight said.

“It is often difficult to relate an applicant’s employee relations record to the risk of alcohol harm but we continue to highlight the issues to the licencing authorities as each case becomes known to us.”

Lawyer Dr Grant Hewison, who has appeared at many licensing hearings, some on behalf of Communities Against Alcohol Harm, believes that the importance of the ARLA decision has been overstated.

Hewison believes the hurdle for denying a new or renewed licence would be much lower than trying to cancel an existing licence, as Wilkinson attempted.

All liquor licences must be renewed every three years, meaning it's just a matter of time before all the licencees Stuff has reported on over the past two years could face a reckoning.

“I believe it is arguable that the decision was not intended by ARLA to apply generally and it can be distinguished from issues regarding suitability and employment that might arise in a new application or renewal application,” Hewison said.

If a case is won at the local level, it will still need to be appealed to and ruled upon by ARLA to set a new legal precedent that can be used to prevent licence renewals from other rogue owners.

In Tokoroa, Bridle hopes to call two of the workers who allege they were exploited, Satwinder Singh and Manjinder Singh Sonu, as witnesses if a public hearing is held.

Bridle’s objection says the owners cannot be selling and supplying liquor responsibly if employees are being underpaid. Doing so would allow them to make greater profits or sell alcohol more cheaply because of the saved labour costs.

In Christchurch, Arora’s licence for his Bottle-O Lincoln store is temporary, which can be issued without any public consultation. It expires in October, and he must submit an application for a full licence; any objection should trigger a public hearing. Former Bottle-O duty manager Chris Jamieson is among those planning to object.