Shouting, fighting, urinating and pooing - unruly patrons force Ponsonby bar's closure

Thursday, 19 September 2019

A Ponsonby Road bar has been told to stop serving booze after local residents complained drinkers were littering, fighting, having sex and defecating on the Auckland street.

The Three Brothers - better known as Harry's Bar - remains open for now but will lose its licence in November after a district licensing committee hearing heard of the 'pandemonium' caused by its patrons.

But its owner says he will appeal the decision, that locals are discriminating against him and his mainly Pasifika clients because of their ethnicity and he's been told 'Ponsonby is not a place for brown people'.

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Harry's was one of three adjoining bars opened in 2015 by actor Oliver Driver and his partner Ella Mizrahi. Metro magazine hailed Harry's as a 'spontaneous antidote to a rising sense of corporate formality'.

But Driver relinquished the lease and owner Peter Cooper sold up last year to a company owned by businessman Varid Raj. Locals told the licensing hearing that under Raj's ownership, Harry's drinkers had caused chaos in the upmarket neighbourhood.

At a liquor licensing renewal hearing, one neighbour, Beryl Jack, recounted how she'd seen a Harry's patron defecating under a hedge in a street. She moved the faeces to a litter bin the next day using a shovel, which she then disinfected. 

She had also seen a drunk urinating on a parked car, and made over 90 recordings of early morning disturbances on her street. In her submission, Jack reported how another neighbour had found faeces-stained clothing dumped in a drain.

'Just before midnight, the hordes of Harry's customers drive into our streets … and the pandemonium starts,' Jack said.

Another neighbour, Stephen Costley, told the hearing he had often picked up two or three 40-litre buckets worth of empty drink bottles dumped in his local reserve. He said he would also find used condoms, gas cylinders and drug paraphernalia dumped in the streets. 

When he tried to talk to the drinkers, he had been threatened and challenged to fight. He said the drinkers would park up and pre-load before midnight while listening to loud music, then drunkenly return when Harry's closed at 3am and fight, argue, drink, urinate and vomit until after 4am. He'd been forced to tell his sons on occasion not to come home from nights out in case of trouble.

Neighbour Catherine Renouf had called police four times for late night disorder and said young children staying at her house had been woken, 'absolutely terrified' by the noise. 

Six out of 17 objectors appeared at the hearing. 

Lawyer Andrew Green, acting for Raj, argued that the objections were about people who weren't customers of the bar and the disturbances were unconnected to Harry's, because his client didn't serve intoxicated customers. He acknowledged drunk people hung around locally until 5am, but it was not Raj's responsibility to police people on the street. He said Raj tried hard to keep the noise down and none of the reporting agencies - police, the licensing inspector or the Ministry of Health - had objected.

In an interview, Raj told Stuff the bar was being targeted because of his race, and the race of his clientele. 'I've been told straight to my face that 'Ponsonby is not a place for brown people'.'

He said if the street disorder related to his bar, then surely the agencies would have objected to his licence. 'I had no idea these complaints even existed - all of a sudden we have these objections coming out of nowhere.'

Raj said he had tried for an amicable resolution, hosting a meeting with eight residents and the local community constable, and offering his cellphone number to locals to call if they felt threatened so he could despatch his security team. Raj said he sent his staff down the street after closing to pick up empties and had time-stamped photographs showing the street clear by 3.30am, but it wasn't his job to enforce the alcohol-ban in the surrounding streets. 

Objectors said the disorder was directly linked to Harry's. Jack told the hearing she'd been told by drinkers that was their destination. In an affidavit, local Andrew Silverstone said he'd lived nearby for 12 years and it had only been in the last year that trouble had occurred, and it was always well after other neighbouring premises had closed.

Raj's submission to the hearing was that the bar catered to workers wanting a casual drink during the day, and then had live music and events in the evening.

However, the objectors said the bar rarely opened except late at night on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.

When Stuff visited on Tuesday afternoon, the bar was closed. Litter was visible on the floors and a broken window had been covered with corflute plastic. 

The panel, chaired by retired judge Bernard Kendall, refused a new licence, saying: 'The premises contribute to much if not all of the alcohol related harm in the locality and therefore cannot be ignored or condoned.'

Grant Hewison, a lawyer who appears for community groups at alcohol licensing hearings and is an expert on alcohol law, said the decision was part of a new direction where licensing committees had to pay more notice to the risks of alcohol-related harm to communities. 'The Three Brothers case is a pretty exceptional outcome for communities,” he said. 'Here the committee refused to renew the licence based on the evidence of the community objectors over the non-opposition from the Police, Medical Officer and Alcohol Inspector.'

Glenn McCutcheon, chair of Communities Against Alcohol Harm, which fights against liquor licences in nearby South Auckland, said: 'It is especially pleasing that the compelling evidence of local objectors was given [such] weight.'

Raj said he was about to submit an appeal to the Alcohol Licensing and Regulatory Authority (ARLA). Under the rules, he can keep trading until his appeal is heard. 'I still have my lease and bank loans, so if I am not able to trade, I might be going bankrupt,' he said. 'It's the last thing I want. At least 12-15 people will lose their jobs.'