Judge lifts suspension of bottle shop's licence

A bottle shop that had its licence suspended can now operate again after an appeals court overturned its suspension over a "misunderstanding".

The owner of Quenchers in Paceville, Joseph Bonello, had been convicted of selling alcohol by the bottle without the necessary permits and had his licence suspended for two months and fined €1,164 in April 2008.

But he appealed the decision, arguing that there was nothing in the law to bar him selling bottles of alcohol and that selling individually-priced bottles did not mean the alcohol would be consumed outside the bar. He also argued that the punishment was excessive.

Mr Justice David Scicluna ruled that the first two points raised were unfounded as the law clearly stated that one could not sell alcohol by the bottle.

However, when Mr Bonello first took ownership of the bar in April 2007 the premises had come with a licence that allowed it to sell alcohol by the bottle. The law was changed when the Malta Tourism Authority took over from the police the responsibility of issuing licences and new legislation came into force in 2004.

Even though this had happened, Mr Bonello was still under the impression that he could sell by the bottle, when in fact he could not.

It was only during a clampdown in 2007 to stop young people from drinking alcohol in the streets that officials started to observe different bottle shops in the St Julians area. In fact, an assistant manager at the MTA, Jonathan Cuschieri, testified that they had seen customers leaving the bar with bottles in bags.

The court took this testimony into consideration before ruling that "it seems there was an anomaly between what the MTA were telling him and what he thought he could do", the court said.

Defence lawyer Roberto Montalto had produced in court the receipts for the licences that were previously paid by the previous owner of the bar, something which was not produced in the Magistrates' Court, the judge said.

On this point, the court revoked the two-month suspension but left the fine in place arguing that Mr Bonello had still broken the law.