Wodonga cops push for joint liquor accord with Albury for pub, club patrons

A meeting between police, hotel and club representatives and council figures from both sides of border has been tentatively scheduled for next month.

Wodonga police inspector Paul Henry said while not all assaults were directly related to excessive alcohol consumption, officers were keen to stop violence before it happens.

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"One of the reasons that we're looking at this is that assaults in the Wodonga police service area are increasing," Inspector Henry said.

"Not all of our assaults are connected to licensed premises, but many of our assaults occur within public spaces, and presumably, can be linked to licensed premises outside of that.

"We're just trying to create a atmosphere of guardianship, we're using three or four tools in your toolbox in order to reduce the propensity for assaults outside of that.

"It's about trying to just make sure that we've got every tool in order to reduce our assaults in public places utilised."

He said Albury and Wodonga already have liquor accords but police in Wodonga were frustrated at legal obstacles preventing sharing of information about banned drinkers.

"The Albury Liquor Accord is well established but they have a different model with communal funding that all the licensed premises provide," he said.

"They have an independent auditor who runs the the the accord meeting, whereas in the Victorian model, it's far more volunteer based and driven by the licensed premises themselves.

"So the challenge that we've got about the liquor accord where we join the Albury one is that we have different rules about the sharing of information between hotels about banned patrons.

"We're not entirely sure that we're able to work with NSW because of the different information security laws that apply in each state.

"And that's one of the things we're trying to flesh out before we go to that type of model.

"You have to have formalised information sharing because, otherwise, it's just too big for the word of mouth, which applies in smaller places like say Corryong, for example."

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