A noisy pub at Traralgon and its company director have been convicted and fined $15,000 each as EPA Victoria takes action with new laws to protect the public and the environment.
They will also pay more than $12,000 in legal costs to EPA Victoria.
After complaints of excessive noise, Ryans Family Hotel Pty Ltd (trading as Hotel Traralgon and known as Ryan's Hotel) was charged with breaching the General Environmental Duty (GED), under the Environment Protection Act 2017.
Modelled on Victoria's successful workplace safety law, the GED is a first for Australia. It makes it everyone's legal responsibility to take reasonable steps to reduce the risk of harm to human health and the environment.
EPA told the court that the company, and its director George Zurcas, failed to ensure all reasonably practicable measures were taken to address the risk of harm from excessive noise arising from the operations at the premises.
The company was charged after months of public complaints. EPA officers gave advice on how to comply in December 2021, conducted repeated inspections, then resorted to issuing a Prohibition Notice and electronic surveillance.
The notice banned the pub from engaging in any activity which would cause the emission of unreasonable noise between 10pm and 7am, and required it to show proof that it had complied.
In May 2022, loud music from the pub was still affecting people outside the premises, and EPA officers installed monitoring equipment nearby that logged the noise levels. Inspections after midnight on two Saturday nights confirmed the excessive noise was coming from the hotel.
EPA General Counsel Greg Elms says while the prosecution's primary purpose is to protect residents of the area from unreasonable levels of noise, the case is a pointer to a responsibility for all Victorians.
"The General Environmental Duty (GED) puts harm prevention at the centre of Victoria's environmental laws. By ensuring we are aware of the environmental risks from our activities we can then take reasonable steps to reduce those risks and prevent harm from happening in the first place," Mr Elms said.
"This is a first for Australia; Victoria is the first state with a legally enforceable GED pointing to proactive responsibility that applies to everyone, and this case demonstrates that it does its job," he said.
"Everyone operating a business should look at their operation's potential for affecting the environment, ask themselves 'what's the harm?' and take actions before that harm can happen."
