Retirement village residents want right to drink without a liquor licence

Friday, 5 September 2025

Retirement village residents are calling on the Government to lift alcohol restrictions effectively banning them from sharing a bottle of wine over a Christmas BBQ, or having a social drink on their patios.

Village residents and village owners have tussled over village law reform, but they have united to call for booze licence restrictions on retirement villages and residents to be eased.

Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee has been tasked by the Government with reforming alcohol sales laws, bringing opposition from alcohol harm groups.

But Nigel Matthews, chief executive of the Retirement Village Residents Association (RVRA), and Michelle Palmer, executive director of the industry body, the Retirement Village Association (RVA), say there would be no harm in McKee allowing villages and their residents to hold occasional social events without having to apply for liquor licences.

They say such events pose little risk, and they are simply social events in residents’ homes.

Matthews said the average 81 year-old resident of a retirement village wasn’t a threat to the community, and wouldn’t be “tearing up the streets” on their walk back to their unit from a social gathering at their village’s bowling green or community lounge.

Yet police have been contacting villages over the need for liquor licences for social events, and Palmer said several villages had stopped holding happy hours as a result.

In one village that hit The Press this month, residents were told they couldn’t even have a drink on the patios in front of their units without a licence, Matthews said.

He called the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act “an archaic piece of legislation that hasn’t considered retirement villages”.

Palmer said: “Villages are residents’ home environments. They are just coming together in common areas.”

They said retirement villages that ran cafes and restaurants selling alcohol should continue to need alcohol licences, like every other licenced premises in the country.

However, residents and villages organising BBQs and social events should not need special events licences to do so, they said.

Palmer said McKee’s planned reforms included allowing hairdressers to serve a glass of wine with a haircut.

“Hairdressers will be allowed to provide a drink for clients, who will presumably get in their cars and drive home afterwards,” Palmer said.

In contrast, village residents allowed to have a glass of wine with friends in their communal lounge would stroll back to their flats and villas, she said.

In their joint letter to McKee, the RVA and RVRA said: “The retirement village sector is unique in that it is a collection of residents (usually over the age of 70) living in a legally registered village.

“The village is their home and the ‘happy hours’ or other social functions occur in their shared lounges and eating areas.

“Residents don’t have to travel anywhere after a drink because they are drinking in their home’s communal areas. They do not cause a public disturbance. Under current legislation they are, in their home environment, under the threat of imprisonment or a large fine,” they said.

The exemptions the RVA and RVRA are seeking would allow village residents committees to serve alcohol without a licence on social occasions to village residents, for one-off social events in villages, and at events organised by village operators where alcoholic drinks were served to residents without charge.

Some of the Government’s alcohol sale reform plans have come in for criticism from alcohol harm advocates, fearing they would reduce the ability of advocates to oppose liquor licence applications.

McKee says her reforms would result in a “fairer, clearer licensing processes, including ensuring that objections to licence applications come from the local community, and allowing applicants the right to respond to objections”.

They would also pave the way for digital ID documents to be accepted as proof of age for people buying alcohol.

The reforms would also require licensed premises to offer a wider range of zero and low-alcohol drinks.

The reforms would also allow hairdressers and barbers to supply small amounts of alcohol to customers without a licence, and a low premises like wineries, breweries, distilleries, and meaderies (a word derived from honey-sweetened mead drinks) to hold both on- and off-licences to support cellar door sales.

Other alcohol sales changes that could pass into law are Labour MP Kieran McAnulty’s bill to remove restrictions on the sale of alcohol on Anzac Day morning, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, and Christmas Day, and National MP Mike Butterick’s bill to allow premises that contain both a shop and a restaurant to hold an on-licence for the restaurant part of the premises and an off-licence for the shop part of the premises.