According to a recent Alcohol Regulatory and Licensing Authority decision police applied to suspend or cancel the licence held by Dakota\u2019s parent company Rhinestone Cowboy in respect of the bar at Courtenay Place.<\/p>\n
A second application has been taken by the police against Dakota\u2019s manager Robert Brooks for the suspension of his manager\u2019s certificate.<\/p>\n
Both applications were based on a controlled purchase operation (CPO) across a number of licensed premises in the Wellington CBD on October 2, 2025.<\/p>\n
The decision said a 16-year-old entered the Dakota Bar about 7pm, accompanied by an undercover police officer. The pair stood by one of the wooden leaners at the back of the bar.<\/p>\n
The teen then approached the bar by herself and purchased two Corona beers from a female staff member. The worker did not check the youth\u2019s ID or ask for age verification.<\/p>\n
A short time later, police spoke to the staff member, Lauren Foss, and she acknowledged she had sold alcohol to the teen and did not ask for ID as she thought the youth had already been checked.<\/p>\n
Foss, who also holds a manager\u2019s certificate and is employed regularly as duty manager at the Dakota Bar, has already been dealt with by the authority.<\/p>\n
Police then spoke to Brooks, who was duty manager at the time of the sale. <\/p>\n
It was not the first time the company and Brooks had come before the authority. The previous time also arose from a failed CPO.<\/p>\n
On September 27, 2024, another 16-year-old volunteer was served alcohol at the bar. This resulted in a 48-hour on-licence suspension and Brooks\u2019 managers\u2019 certificate was suspended for 28 days.<\/p>\n
The Dakota Bar on Courtenay Place in Wellington.<\/p>\n
Sergeant Tulimanu Leuluai told the authority only two CPOs have been undertaken at Dakota Bar over the past year, and both resulted in alcohol being sold to a young person.<\/p>\n
The sergeant argued the bar had a 100% failure rate for CPOs over that period.<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, it remains of concern to us that this is the second time in under a year that both Mr Ubiaga, by his company, and Mr Brooks are before the authority for the same offence,\u201d the authority said.<\/p>\n
The authority ordered the bar\u2019s on-licence be suspended for a period of 96 hours, which occurred from 8am March 9 to 8am March 13, as well as Brook\u2019s managers\u2019 certificate being suspended for 56 days from February 25 to April 21.<\/p>\n
In the case of Rhinestone Cowboy and its licence for Dakota Bar, a third negative holding within a three-year period would result in an application for the cancellation of the licence.<\/p>\n
For Brooks, a third negative holding within the relevant three-year period would result in the cancellation of his managers\u2019 certificate.<\/p>\n
Ubiaga told NZME the police target certain venues and he wanted to work with them more co-operatively.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not going to sit here and pretend those results didn\u2019t happen. <\/p>\n \u201cWe failed twice and I take full responsibility for that. At the end of the day it\u2019s my premises, my licence, and it\u2019s on me to make sure the staff are doing what they\u2019re supposed to do. There\u2019s no getting around that.\u201d<\/p>\n He said after the first failure he thought he\u2019d done enough to retrain staff.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen it happened a second time I was gutted.\u201d<\/p>\n But he said some venues on the road had never had a CPO.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd some of those places, if you walked in on a Friday night, you\u2019d have serious questions about how they\u2019re operating. <\/p>\n \u201cSo yes, we failed and we have to own that. But the broader point still stands \u2013 if you\u2019re only testing the same places over and over again, you\u2019re not getting a true picture of what\u2019s happening across the board. <\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re just hammering the ones already on your list while others fly completely under the radar.\u201d<\/p>\n Ubiaga said he\u2019d welcome a system where every venue gets tested regularly by police, so no one felt singled out and the venues \u201cgenuinely cutting corners\u201d would be caught out.<\/p>\n \u201cI just wish they\u2019d work with us more. To be a fair test they need to test every venue at least once every two years, not just a handful of venues.\u201d<\/p>\n He said the tests are often done when there is no security on the door because everyone\u2019s ID gets checked and scanned. <\/p>\n \u201cUnderages aren\u2019t coming out to a pub before 11pm anyway because they can\u2019t afford to drink.\u201d<\/p>\n Ubiaga said he\u2019d implemented considerable changes to the training of his staff and had devised his own testing procedure, akin to a CPO and using an of-age volunteer, at his own bars and in others.<\/p>\n He said a co-operative system by the police would include more support for training bar staff, regular check-ins and open lines of communication where operators can raise concerns early without feeling like they\u2019re putting a target on their own back. <\/p>\n \u201cIf a bar manager spots a trend they should feel comfortable picking up the phone without worrying it\u2019ll trigger an inspection. That kind of intelligence sharing benefits everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n