HISTORY OF THE NEW HOTEL INDUSTRY

Hotels are the oldest form of hospitality in NSW and to this day, have a primary function as the community focal points.

Hotels offered the most extensive services to public over a period of 160 years, up until the 1950s when registered private clubs first appeared. However, hotels paid in NSW Government highly for the privilege that they were extended in the way of the state's highest licence fees.

The Australian Hotel Association (NSW) can trace its origins back to 1873.

New South Wales, with a population of almost 540,000 people at that time, had over 2,400 licensed publicans. The same year the temperance campaign was having a serious effect on the public with campaigners trying to achieve a total ban on liquor.

Deciding that only united action could overcome this threat to their livelihood, Mr Charles Darton of the Occidental Hotel, Wynyard, called on licensed victuallers to form an association that would protect and defend its members.

The United Licensed Victuallers Association (ULVA) was formed, and represented the industry as the peak body in subsequent decades.

The decision of government in July 1956 to legalise poker machines in non-proprietary clubs, profits being taxed and the resultant revenue diverted to the hospitals fund, was a combination of blows to the hotel industry.

Hoteliers seemed powerless to defend their trade against the now unrestricted competition from the clubs.

In 1959, the ULVA became known as the NSW Branch of the Australian Hotel Association. In 1960, it obtained registration as an industrial union of employers.

From 1963, hotels were able to trade from 10am to 10pm.

By the late 1960s the traditional 'men only' hotel was almost a thing of the past. It had been replaced by the sophisticated comforts of new and rebuilt hotels. Underlying these gains, however, were indications that the industry had yet to overcome a number of difficulties. A referendum held in November 1969 on the question of Sunday trading had been lost.

It was during the 1970s that governments directed attention to the mounting road toll, leading to the introduction of a maximum permitted breath alcohol level and eventually to random breath testing.

The Association mounted its own campaigns advocating road safety and the exclusion of underage drinkers from hotels.

Sunday trading was introduced in 1979 and hotels were even able to open two hours early on Anzac Day, 1980, without the dire consequences predicted by the temperance lobby.

The spread of PubTab and associated wagering and sports services helped secure the viability of many hotels as did the legislation, in 1985, of video games machines.

Up until the late 1980s, about 43 per cent of hotels were owned by the State's breweries. However, a number of corporate crashes led to breweries selling the freeholds of individual hotels, with the purchasers often being the former lessees.

Of 2,022 hotels in 1993/94, some 1,225 were freeholds and a further 663 were private leaseholds. Only a small number of brewery-owned hotels remain.

The State's hotels are, therefore, overwhelmingly owned by small-to-medium size businesses. Many hotels are run by individual families, with all members of the family working in, and often living at the business.
The oldest liquor licence in NSW belongs to the Woolpack Hotel, which is still trading at Parramatta. The Woolpack first served liquor in 1796.
The oldest building licensed as a hotel is the Macquarie Arms at Windsor, which still operates as a hotel after first being licensed in 1815.
The oldest continuous licence in the same building is the Surveyor General Hotel, at Berrima, which was first licensed in 1835.