The Carlton Bar and Restaurant on Papanui Rd, in Christchurch, has had its on-licence suspended from 8am December 26 to 8am January 3.

A Christchurch pub has been temporarily stripped of its licence days before New Year's Eve after a heavily intoxicated customer died of head injuries last year.

Carlton Bar & Restaurant's on-licence has been suspended for eight days from 8am on Boxing Day, meaning it cannot serve alcohol on December 31 – one of the most lucrative nights of the year for hospitality venues.

The owner has opted to close the Papanui Rd bar and restaurant completely until January 3. A sign in the window says when it will reopen but does not detail the licence suspension.

The decision was made by Judge Kevin Kelly, chair of the Alcohol Regulatory and Licensing Authority (ARLA), after a customer was served seven 500-millilitre glasses of beer and eight glasses of wine before falling backwards and being knocked unconscious.

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The man left the pub in a taxi but was later taken to hospital where his blood alcohol level was found to be more than five times over the drink-drive limit.

ROSS GIBLIN/STUFF The experiment - what happens to breath-alcohol levels when different people drink the same amounts?

He was admitted to intensive care but died three days later. The cause of death was "head injuries from a short distance fall while intoxicated with alcohol".

The man – who was known to staff and friends with the bar's owner, James Murdoch – began drinking at 5pm on May 10, 2018.

He stayed for four-and-a-half hours, consuming 3.5 litres of beer and between 1.5 and 1.7 litres of wine.

The man was described as being tall with a large frame and several people known to him said he was "capable of drinking a large amount of alcohol without necessarily showing the effects", a statement of facts said.

He went out to the smoking area about 9.30pm, where CCTV footage showed his coordination was affected by alcohol and his movements were unsteady.

Once outside, the remaining bottle of wine and his glass were brought out to him, but he did not drink it.

He fell directly backwards and struck his head on the ground about 9.42pm. The impact knocked him unconscious for a short period, then he was helped back up.

He left the premises about five minutes later with another man and got in an Uber. The driver described him as "very drunk".

Lee Kenny/Stuff A Christchurch pub has been temporarily stripped of its licence days before New Year's Eve.

The man's condition deteriorated and he died on May 13.

Sergeant David Robertson told an ARLA hearing on November 28 that Papanui Road Ltd (the company that owns Carlton Bar & Restaurant) should have its licence suspended for breaching the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act 2012.

Police also requested duty manager Nicola Sarah Molony – who had worked at the bar for four-and-a-half years – lose her manager's certificate for 28 days.

Molony recalled serving the man two bottles of wine but did not know he had fallen over until after he left the premises.

Papanui Road Ltd accepted responsibility for breaching the Act but counsel David Jackson said there was "nothing to suggest that the male was observably affected by alcohol until the last 45 minutes to one hour of the time he spent on the premises".

The wine "tipped the balance and led to the man's rapid decline". Staff at the two-storey venue "acted diligently in dealing with the man but misjudged their assessment of his level of intoxication", Jackson said.

Molony, who has worked in hospitality for 25 years, did not oppose the application to suspend her manager's certificate but asked the judge to consider her previously untarnished record and her remorse and cooperation with the investigation.

The case is the third time Papanui Road Ltd has appeared before ARLA for issues relating to intoxication.

George Block/Stuff Alcohol Regulatory and Licensing Authority chair Judge Kevin Kelly oversaw the hearing regarding Carlton Bar and Eatery (owned by Papanui Road Ltd).

Judge Kelly challenged the company "to proactively become a bellwether for change in respect of New Zealand's drinking culture" and said authorities would be closely monitoring the situation.

He acknowledged "the inherently invidious position that staff, including managers, can be put in when a licensee chooses to drink on the premises with patrons, let alone friends" and said the "very presence of a licensee in his or her own premises may in itself lead to staff being less vigilant about patrons' levels of intoxication".

However, 45 minutes "ought to have been more than enough time for the man's intoxication levels to have been noticed with greater diligence".

The judge ordered the eight-day on-licence suspension and revoked Molony's manager's certificate for 28 days, both starting December 26.

Papanui Road Ltd was unable to be reached for comment on Thursday.