Fantastic news from the Peninsula this morning. At a time when it seems that, despite everything they say, the VCGR is falling over themselves to increase the number of pokies in Victoria, one hotel has said “enough!”
The Hotel Sorrento, located on the Mornington Peninsula, has today made history by becoming the first venue to voluntarily hand back its poker machines.
The scary thing is that the owners, Rob and Anne Pitt, couldn’t just hand back the machines. Oh no, first they had to go through a year of negotiations with Tabcorp… talk about painful! But they persevered, and they’ve got the desired result.
Now they can focus on making their hotel into the kind of establishment they want it to be… and the locals will be better off for it. Given that the Shire of Mornington Peninsula has more venues, and spends more money on pokies than any other shire in the state, it must come as something of a relief to have another quality alternative to the pokies pubs.
Over the last financial year, the 18 venues of the Shire of Mornington Peninsula raked in almost $81 million from their pokies.
