Alcohol sales are set to be restricted across Western Australia to prevent panic buying during the coronavirus outbreak, with limitations on how much bottle shops can sell to patrons coming into force this morning.

Under the new restrictions, daily limits will restrict people to purchasing the following:

three bottles of wine
one carton of beer, cider or premix spirits
one litre of spirits
one litre of fortified wine

But people will be able to purchase across two of those categories under the rules, which will come into force at 10:00am.

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That means that people would still be able to buy a carton of beer and three bottles of wine per day, for example.

A litre of spirits and a carton of beer would also be permissible.

The restrictions are described as being enforced as “per customer per day” in an attempt to cut down on any bulk buying of alcohol.

Bottle shops were contacted this morning by director of liquor licensing Duncan Ord.

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“These conditions will apply to hotel, hotel restricted, tavern, liquor store, producers, club, wholesalers and special facility licenses,” the advice said.

More details are set to be revealed by Premier Mark McGowan and Police Commissioner Chris Dawson today.

Flagging the restrictions earlier this week, Commissioner Dawson said he would “exercise any emergency power to keep the community safe”.

“We will consider all options depending on whether the community behave and do that in a civil way,” he said at the time.

“They haven’t done it with toilet paper.”

West Australians were yesterday told to cancel their holiday plans and stay home instead of travelling within the state as the Government grapples to contain the number of COVID-19 cases.

The number of confirmed WA cases of the virus stands at 175 after another 35 infections were revealed yesterday.

–ABC