Latest / Best of Business / Greig Wilson: Epic Hospitality CEO on Good Friday and Easter Sunday alcohol restrictions getting reduced

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Greig Wilson: Epic Hospitality CEO on Good Friday and Easter Sunday alcohol restrictions getting reduced · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks'd be follow
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  Speaker 2: So we are talking about easter trading laws. They're going
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  Speaker 2: to be reformed and it may even pass before Good Friday.
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  Speaker 2: That means if you go to a restaurant you want
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  Speaker 2: some booze, you don't need to even order food.
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  Speaker 3: Why not appease everyone, says Eshley by having total and
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  Speaker 3: utter closure on Good Friday and then fully open it
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  Speaker 3: up to everyone to do whatever they want on Sunday.
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  Speaker 3: I like you, thanking, esh So you you guy that
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  Speaker 3: a guy or gal that looks for a looks for
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  Speaker 3: a compromise.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, fifty to fifty shut it all down on Friday,
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  Speaker 2: open everything up now. Greg Wilson has been listening. He
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  Speaker 2: is part of Epic Hospitality. Greg good to chat with
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  Speaker 2: you. You get a guy, so, mate, you you run five
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  Speaker 2: hospital businesses in Wellington. I take it you'd be pretty
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  Speaker 2: happy with this reform coming through.
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  Speaker 4: Oh. Absolutely, This is a harle luja moment for hospitality,
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  Speaker 4: you know, right across New Zealand. If we've had these
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  Speaker 4: okaic laws that no one even can remember. Why I
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  Speaker 4: even came up with the first place, and just the
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  Speaker 4: enforcement around it. It's just been ridiculous. Like, you know,
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  Speaker 4: people have to come in and eat food and then
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  Speaker 4: has to be a substantial amount of food on good Friday,
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  Speaker 4: and then what's a substantial meal? And then that's not
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  Speaker 4: you know, how long is a piece of string?
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  Speaker 3: How did you how did you how did you sort
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  Speaker 3: of quantify that as a substantial meal? Did you have
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  Speaker 3: any anything in place in your mind?
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, we did. Was basically a mains meal would qualify.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, look, just to tell you how ridiculous it was,
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  Speaker 4: Like one year one of our pubs, we had a
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  Speaker 4: whole bunch of cops coming at about eleven and a
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  Speaker 4: half hours nineteen o'clock on the Friday, a bunch of guys.
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  Speaker 4: That was five guys, and they had four pizzas on
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  Speaker 4: the table. The police came over to our drea and
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  Speaker 4: then if I said, look, sorry and look that's not
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  Speaker 4: substantial enough, and they had a big debate about it,
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  Speaker 4: and that's about forty minutes. Can you believe it, Peter, Yeah,
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  Speaker 4: that's right, that's right. So I had a big debate
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  Speaker 4: about this, and so we had to give them an
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  Speaker 4: extra a bottle of fries because that they policed. I
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  Speaker 4: don't know, you're going to have to get a little
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  Speaker 4: bit more.
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  Speaker 3: So that's crazy that that kind of they're kind of
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  Speaker 3: that kind of gray area is problem matter. What do
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  Speaker 3: you think about the wider thing having rules like that?
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  Speaker 3: As you say, how long is a piece of string?
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  Speaker 4: Rules?
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  Speaker 3: Just never it's never a.
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  Speaker 2: We ever drafted that. I just gave substantial meal. That's enough,
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  Speaker 2: We'll put that on the lord. Everyone will know what
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  Speaker 2: that means.
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  Speaker 4: Not ye, that'll be fine, you know. And that's and
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  Speaker 4: they left us with it years and it's carried on
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  Speaker 4: for years and years. It's just almost like they've forgotten
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  Speaker 4: to deal with it, like someone's finally got round to
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  Speaker 4: sorting the stupid law out.
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  Speaker 3: Hey, from it from a hospitality perspective, because someone was
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  Speaker 3: ringing before and saying, you know that it's the pubs
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  Speaker 3: just great for them because food whatever, But food is
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  Speaker 3: often not a big money spinner for a lot of hospitality.
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  Speaker 3: Would that be true, greet, Yeah, that's right.
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  Speaker 4: So it's it's a lot harder to make money out
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  Speaker 4: of food than what the alcohol, because you know, you're
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  Speaker 4: basically a petrol station pouring liquid. So it's a lot
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  Speaker 4: easier to sell liquid in the glass and prepare meal
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  Speaker 4: because a whole lot more to go wrong. But yeah,
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  Speaker 4: that's generally right, especially for pubs. Yeah yeah.
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  Speaker 3: And do you would you are you against any day
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  Speaker 3: being restrictions on hospital and any day of the year.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah?
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  Speaker 4: Percent, I mean it should. We're not asking for like
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  Speaker 4: a relaxation of liquor laws. All we're asking for is
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  Speaker 4: to be treated like every other day of the year.
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  Speaker 4: Because we're talking about illegal you know, alcohols, the drug,
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  Speaker 4: it's legal products, the legal drug. We're just asking for
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  Speaker 4: it to be treated like every other day of the year.
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  Speaker 4: And for individuals in this country to be able to
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  Speaker 4: have an individual choice and make up their own mind.
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  Speaker 4: And for those people that you know that don't support it, well,
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  Speaker 4: they don't come out, sit at home, sit at home,
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  Speaker 4: you know, don't come out.
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  Speaker 3: Well, what's the rule on Christmas Day?
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  Speaker 4: Greg?
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  Speaker 3: I'm just trying to think. Now, I went out for
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  Speaker 3: Christmas dinner last year, I believe in on the day before,
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  Speaker 3: isn't it there was certainly meal maybe there was.
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  Speaker 4: Pretty much the same rules, pretty much the same rules
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  Speaker 4: of Christmas Day. So they'll be dealt with us with
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  Speaker 4: this bill as well, yeah, so my sort of sweeping change.
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  Speaker 4: Nicely tired yet, but you know nights, you've heard your
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  Speaker 4: head tourists, you know from over seas and the here,
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  Speaker 4: and the pub's nice and busy. On Easter Thursday, the
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  Speaker 4: next thing, you know, ding ding stroke midnight hits. Well,
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  Speaker 4: that's everyone out and all the tourists like, oh what's
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  Speaker 4: going on? This is weird. You know, we've come from
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  Speaker 4: the other side of the planet and we're here for
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  Speaker 4: the weekend in Wellington. No sorry, no, no you Jesus
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  Speaker 4: died about two thousand years ago and we've we closed
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  Speaker 4: having down here.
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  Speaker 3: And you know, the interesting thing is the interesting thing
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  Speaker 3: is is Christianity. Isn't the teetotaling religion. I mean in
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  Speaker 3: Jesus famous the wedding with his mum. Yeah, his first
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  Speaker 3: America first miracle, the red wine was making the wine.
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  Speaker 3: That's right, it was his first one. Hey, what what's
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  Speaker 3: hospitality like down in Wellington? Because I feel in the
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  Speaker 3: news there's a lot of doom and gloom about Wellington.
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  Speaker 3: But I was down there a couple of about a
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  Speaker 3: month ago, and I went out and everything seemed to
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  Speaker 3: be rammed and was going off.
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  Speaker 4: It's been good. It's been good. We just said, keeper Dooper.
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  Speaker 4: The town was just buzzing all weekend. We had a record,
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  Speaker 4: Keeper Dooper. We've had a good trading, really good trading
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  Speaker 4: in February. The last six months, it feels like we've
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  Speaker 4: come out of the come out of the hole.
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  Speaker 1: You know.
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  Speaker 4: Hospitality, especially Wilson just got hammered with COVID and then
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  Speaker 4: the recession and there was a number of bars or
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  Speaker 4: restaurants that were closing, and but you know, some of
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  Speaker 4: those media just sort of jump on some of those stories.
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  Speaker 4: Some of those businesses were at the least was coming
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  Speaker 4: to an end, or the owner was retiring a little
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  Speaker 4: bit deeper.
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  Speaker 3: Sometimes they are a rubbish industry and business. Sometimes the
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  Speaker 3: owners just taking a lot of cash out of there,
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  Speaker 3: not covering tax. But it all gets tied up as
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  Speaker 3: as you know, the economy's fault.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, hard we said all the government's fault and
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  Speaker 4: dream and so yeah, the left wing and the media
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  Speaker 4: in this country just jump on there any opportunity, especially
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  Speaker 4: at Wellington being a sort of political left landing city.
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  Speaker 3: Well, thank you for for you called Greg, and good luck,
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  Speaker 3: good luck very much, go well on Friday.
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  Speaker 2: That is Greg Wilson, the owner of Ipper Hospitality. He
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  Speaker 2: runs five Wellington hospital businesses, and he says Hallelujah.
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