Brad Jacobs: Franchise NZ Chairman and Coffee Club Director on the proposed trespass rules

Franchises could soon have the ability to trespass someone across multiple sites. 

Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is beefing up the current laws, calling them no longer fit for purpose. 

He's also proposing doubling the maximum fines for trespassing on businesses, and increasing the maximum period to three years. 

Franchise New Zealand Chairman and Coffee Club Director Brad Jacobs told Ryan Bridge there's currently no way to block someone across several sites. 

He says there's a lot of repetition with multiple franchises doing the same work to get the same outcome. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The government's given businesses the power to trespass people from
multiple locations. It's also raised the maximum trespass period from
two years up to three. Brad Jacobs is a franchise
and News Inland chairperson and coffee club co owner with
us this morning. Hey Brad, good morning, Ryan, good morning.
Good to have you on the show. You like the
sound of this. Is it going to make a difference?

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Yeah, it certainly will. Obviously. One of the challenges I
guess for franchise groups at the moment is that franchise
businesses are all individually owned, as you know, so there
would be no way at the moment for a group
to be able to trespass someone from multiple locations in
one go. So it would come back to repetition and

(00:41):
multiple franchise's doing the same work over and over again
to be able to achieve the same outcome.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
So basically, now, if somebody offends against one franchise franchise e,
then they've sinned against all of them.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
That's my understanding of what they're proposing. Yes, so obviously
we haven't seen an exact bill yet or the legislation,
but that's how I understand it.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
What about the fine that increasing the maximum fine for
anyone refusing to give their name and address when requested
or giving false information from five hundred dollars to one
thousand dollars. Is that are they saying that's your responsibility
or is that if police are there? What's the story there?
Do you know?

Speaker 2 (01:17):
Yeah? Good question. Look, I guess the fines in my view,
remain relatively low, so I'm not sure that they're a
massive deterreent to be honest, While it sounds good, So
they're doubling, they're doubling not necessarily small base. I guess
the key is, yes, you need to be able to
at the moment, you need to be able to have
a lot of details of the person to be able
to actually issue a trespass notice. But again, my uner

(01:39):
standing is that they're working on ways to be able
to reduce that so that if someone does refuse to
give their details, or you may know them by a
common name which may not actually be their legal name,
that there could be ways to be able to still
issue a trespass notice even with that information.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
What do you think the fines should be, you know,
if doubling from five hundred one thousand or what ever,
as not the go what should they.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
Be I think probably Unfortunately, for some of those repeat offenders,
it wouldn't matter whether it was one thousand, five thousand,
or ten thousand. I'm not sure that they're in a
position to make payment anyway, So I don't know. Doubling
it is certainly a good start, but I don't think
there are massive to terrent.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
Unfortunately, in your coffee shop, do you get much abuse
going on because I'm assuming most of the people who
are wanting to steal stuff or going to supermarkets or
to retail stores rather than to a cafe.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, it'd be our retail members that struggle
more my own personal business. Yes, cafes, we don't have
to trespass people that often in our cafes. No, Fortunately,
it's not a huge problem for us. We certainly, unfortunately,
our team members do get treated unfairly regularly in the cafes.
People get a bit grumpy, but it's not to the

(02:54):
point where you would you'd need to remove someone. In
the CBD, we have four cafe in the CBD, they
do have to face a lot with unfortunately, people on
the streets, homeless people and people with some mental health issues.
Trespassing them sometimes is really just a bit of a
waste of time because unfortunately they don't have anywhere else

(03:17):
to go and so they reappear or they move from
one corner of the city to another. So yeah, it
can be very challenging for our French as these in
the CBD and Auckland in particular.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
Interesting Brad, Thank you. Brad Jacobs Franchise New Zealand chairperson,
also co owner of a coffee club.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live
to news Talks.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
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