Whenever I've been there, the entry fee has been $15. If you buy...

Whenever I've been there, the entry fee has been $15. If you buy a gold card, which allows admission for regulars for a year or so, you go in for free but the card costs more - I'm not sure but maybe $150 or so.

At the bar, beers are generally around $6 and spirits a bit more - not unreasonable prices. Soft drinks are not much less than beer.

The evidence PPN tendered to VCAT says they get more patrons in Bar 20 than any of the other clubs on the strip. Whether they get 3000 per week is hard to know for sure. The police might have an idea but they haven't said.

PPN charges the girls a fee to appear - what that is, I don't know but let's say a hundred or two hundred a night, depending on the night of the week. They might have 40 girls in there on a weekend night, so it's good money for PPN.

They also charge for functions on a catered basis such as buck's parties which include food, drinks, girls and room hire. That happens every weekend, at least, multiple times per weekend.

So, all in all, they have a fair range of income sources, the sale of alcohol being probably the main one, I should think.

If the sale of alcohol is no longer possible, I have no doubt the club could continue, not just in limp-along mode but at a reasonable level of financial activity. The loss of the licence wouldn't be a door-closer. Anyone who wanted to get tanked up could do this in another venue before moving on to Bar 20, and then it would be up to the police to sort out drunken behaviour in or out of the club, without being able to blame it on the service standards in Bar 20. Bar 20 could obviously sell Clayton's or smoothies or anything interesting with no booze in it, and probably that would not have much of an impact on the attendance figures, because the girls are the main attraction, so the door take wouldn't be much affected.

It would have an effect on the overall finances because a major source of revenue would be gone, but the drop would be partly made up in the markup on non-alco drinks or snack food.

As regards an appeal, you have to leave it to people who profess to know the law. The Supreme Court has a higher evidentiary standard than VCAT, and you can see that in Snr Member Davis's summation - he only requires evidence to be acceptable to a reasonable man - whereas the Supreme Court would probably require proof that a man was drunk or that the man had been served irresponsibly, and there is no conclusive proof as such, otherwise it would have been produced at VCAT.

If there is no leave to appeal, and alcohol cannot be served in future, then PPN shareholders will have been saved perhaps a quarter of a million dollars in legal fees and the directors will be looking forward to having their individual licensing suspensions lifted in 18 months' time. Then they will be free to carry on a liquor-based activity elsewhere (I'm assuming that the canceled PPN licence at Bar 20 will never be reinstated on an application from these two men), so the Bar 20 business could move to licensed premises in another venue.

The bottom line is that Grollo is only interested in that one city block. The other clubs which are only a few hundred metres away, but located in the adjoining blocks, are not of interest to him for development - or of much interest to the police, evidently, despite having had reasonably high levels of incidents.

At the AGM six months ago, a former Mayor of St Kilda was introduced as an intending new director who had sought a liquor licence. We have heard no more about that so perhaps his application has been overtaken by events.

If Grollo cannot kill Bar 20 and the adjoining nightclub owned by Iwaniuk, which are the only two items of real estate in the block Grollo doesn't own, and he cannot buy them out, then what will he try next in order to get a clear path to redevelopment of that part of the strip?

One thing is for certain - the building in which Bar 20 operates is a valuable and desirable piece of real estate. The strip joint is a business which can be bought or sold or moved, and this can be done separately to any consideration of the real estate matter.

As shareholders, we have an interest in both the real estate and the business. Both have high intrinsic worth. That worth would be harmed by the loss of the liquor licence, but not irretrievably so.

The VCAT finding is not a good result for PPN or the directors but it is not fatal, either. Trimble's business card says CQC. Let's see if that qualification is deserved.