Corks may be popping in Helensburgh, but the community won't be celebrating with bottles from a local Liquorland. And nor are they likely to be, with the final chapter in the Coles liquor licence saga drawing to a close.
A letter from Liquor & Gaming NSW sent to stakeholders on Friday, 26 August provided an update on the application for a new packaged liquor licence at 19-33 Walker Street, Helensburgh. It read: "Has changed its status to Refused: NCAT review request closed."
A spokesperson for the NSW Independent Liquor & Gaming Authority said: "The status of 'NCAT review request closed' refers to the expiry of 28 days since ILGA’s decision. This is the time in which any applications for an appeal should be made to the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT). If an appeal has not been lodged within this time, the noticeboard automatically changes the status of the application to 'NCAT review request closed'."
"It's a huge win for the community," said Neighbourhood Forum 1 convenor Warwick Erwin, who along with other forum members has opposed the idea of a fourth bottleshop on Walker Street since Coles applied for the packaged liquor licence in July 2021.
The 'Refused' status change follows a 30 May announcement that the NSW Independent Liquor & Gaming Authority had knocked back the application by Coles-owned Liquorland, deciding it was "not in the public interest".
Warwick said the latest news was an "emotional" end to a long-running campaign that has included over 300 public submissions, a public meeting attended by 100 people, and has brought together people from across the 2508 community, from estate agents to church pastors and GPs, from business owners to concerned residents.
"No one person has led this," Warwick said. "A whole lot of people have individually stepped up with the same goal.
"The last time so many individuals stood up was when we fought the tattoo parlour [about 10 years ago].
"This has shown the community's still there as a village and will stand up and fight for itself, and we haven't seen that for a while."
Warwick said the next step for NF1 was to write to Council, asking it to rescind the development application for a change of use to a liquor store.
On 30 August, a Council spokesperson said: “The proposed liquor store is subject to a dual approval process relating to the land use consent issued by Council and Liquor Licence issued by Liquor & Gaming NSW. The conditional Development Consent remains valid and Council is not able to rescind the consent in circumstances where the Liquor Licence is refused. The proponent may however elect to surrender their consent voluntarily."