Pub customer left fuming after smoking dispute

A patron of a Darlinghurst hotel has complained that while smoking in the gaming area the hotel manager tried to force him to gamble. The hotel manager argued that he was simply asking him to move so that a gaming customer could use the machine.

Journalist Nicholas Pickard and his friend went into the smoking area to have a cigarette. As in many other pubs, that is also the poker machine room. He said that, not for the first time, he was pressured to play the pokies by hotel staff.

"Later, a man who I found out later was the machine room manager, came yelling towards us that if we didn't play the poker machines we should get out. He then disappeared and 10 minutes later a bouncer came up to us and also started to hassle us that if we didn't play more that we should get out."

Mr Pickard said he was sick of having to sit in gambling rooms if he wanted a cigarette and being pressured to gamble while there.

"They are horrible places."

He said he had complained to the Office of Liquor, Gaming and Racing.

But the hotel's duty manager, Colin Fraser, said Mr Pickard's account was incorrect.

"I asked them if they wouldn't mind moving so another gaming customer could use that machine," he said, adding that at no point had Mr Pickard been encouraged to play the pokies.

"They didn't want to move and it caused a bit of a scene. I said at this point, 'We'll have to ask them to leave the venue."'

The Minister for Gaming and Racing, Grant McBride, said it was illegal for hotel or club patrons to be forced to play poker machines, an offence punishable by up to $275,000 and loss of licence.

A spokesman for the minister said smokers would not be sent into gambling rooms for much longer. On July 2 a total ban on indoor smoking in pubs will come into effect. However, an area is defined as outdoors if 25 per cent of the room is open to the outside.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald

Date: March 13 2007

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