The owner of a Hamilton bar has won his appeal against the decision of the Liquor Licensing Authority to strip him of his member’s club licence.

The Supreme Court upheld Carlton Simmons’s appeal because a member of the panel that decided his renewal application had been involved in a continuing dispute with him at the time.

Mr Simmons will now have to make a fresh application to renew his licence to a reconstituted panel of the LLA in the coming weeks.

Judge Stephen Hellman suggested that an “expeditious hearing would be desirable” as Mr Simmons had been without a licence since the LLA’s decision on May 31.

“The appeal is allowed on the grounds that there is a reasonable apprehension of bias against one member of the tribunal who was involved in an ongoing dispute with Mr Simmons at the time of the hearing before the LLA,” Mr Justice Hellman said.

“I am going to remit this matter to a differently constituted panel of the LLA for rehearing to give Mr Simmons the opportunity to put all the information before the board. What seems to have gone wrong the first time is that everything was done in a big hurry.

“I can well understand the decision of the LLA, but had the information been put before it in the way Mr Simmons now puts his case, it might have come to a different decision.”

The judge awarded costs of the appeal to Mr Simmons as he was successful.

The LLA initially refused the application and Mr Simmons applied again in November 2013, saying the purpose of the club was to fund his charity, Youth on the Move. In March 2014, Ambiance Lounge was granted a members’ club licence, which was renewed in May 2015 after a hearing.

In March of this year Mr Simmons applied to renew his licence again.

The LLA then asked him to provide a raft of documentation showing membership, subscriptions, minutes, account books and programmes to demonstrate it was a bona fide members’ club.

In May after a hearing, the establishment was stripped of its members’ club licence after the Liquor Licensing Authority found it had failed to provide sufficient written proof it was doing work to benefit its members or the community.

LLA chairman and senior magistrate Juan Wolffe said the establishment was run more like a business than a members’ club.

In his ruling, Mr Wolffe added: “We are not satisfied that the club has organised sufficient programmes for it members or the community at large.”

The new date for the hearing before the reconstituted panel of the LLA was not set.

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