Andrew Pieper and James Cooper to lead new Tamworth and District Liquor Accord after members vote

Andrew Pieper, who runs the licences for council's AELEC and TRECC venues, is now the president of the accord.

At a meeting this week, he was voted in to lead the accord by some 40 members who were present.

The membership of the accord has grown to more than 40 representatives from hotels, clubs, pubs, restaurants and function centres, with council, police and security companies now working hand-in-hand with the accord.

"We reached out to the security companies to get them working with the accord to increase the communication channels, because in a lot of venues they're the eyes and ears and see a lot of the stuff," Mr Pieper told the Leader.

Mr Pieper will be backed by Wests Entertainment Group deputy CEO James Cooper as vice-president while Michael Squires from the Southgate Inn will be the secretary.

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"We just want to try and maintain the liquor accord momentum that others have built in the past," Mr Pieper said.

"Over the last 10 years, the liquor accord, in collaboration with police, has come a long way and has created a safer community in and around the licensed venues.

"And at the end of the day it's all about harm minimisation and making people feel safe in venues."

Mr Pieper said the accord would also look to others across the state because "we can all learn from one another".

Mr Cooper said the accord got straight down to business after the new leadership team was voted in.

"We talked a lot about the festival, and police, and working with them, so we're looking to implement a Plan B campaign for the festival and some other strategies over the festival in Tamworth," he said.

"We're also going to update our Outlaw Motorcycle Gang (OMCG) lists to ensure we're all on the same page and not letting anyone in that we shouldn't be."

He said talks had also focused on a multi-barring policy to ensure troublemakers are booted out of one, and all, for serious offences, on top of the measures in place for the ID scanners.

"This is more extensive, we're going to take a look at other accords and look at what they do for more serious offences, and look at a frameworks for multi-barring venues," Mr Cooper said.

The accord will continue to meet quarterly, but "the executive is going to meet consistently and continue to drive these initiatives," Mr Cooper said.

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