Ill-considered Regulation: A Barrier to entry for Liquor distributors

The Court has confirmed that you can legally sell liquor online to the public without storing it on your licensed premises.

Many online liquor businesses sell liquor to the public under a model where the product is sent directly from their supplier to the customer, without ever being stored by the seller. In this setup, the licensed premises is often just the office where the admin happens, even a home office, depending on the municipality’s zoning rules.

However, the same doesn’t apply when selling liquor online to the trade (e.g. restaurants, hotels, liquor stores). After the 2013 amendment to the national Liquor Act regulations, the National Liquor Authority requires that any premises licensed to sell to other licensed businesses must be zoned for “warehousing and distribution of liquor”, even if the seller never stores the liquor.

This means entrepreneurs must get licensed for a warehouse, which adds unnecessary cost and complexity.

The solution? A simple change to the regulation. If the Minister of Trade Industry and Competition updates the regulation to require zoning that’s “appropriate for how the business operates,” then admin-only premises (like offices) could qualify, just as they do for sales to the public.

Because this requirement sits in a regulation, not the Act itself, no Parliamentary process is needed, only the Minister’s approval.