Vote For Clover! The Fight For Small Bars

Sydney siders should be all well aware of the upcoming council elections happening tomorrow Saturday 8^th of September. Will Sydney decide to keep Clover Moore as Lord Mayor or will Angela Vithoulkas from the Living Sydney party win the race?

I may be a little biased and only really keep an eye on Clover’s policies but she seems to be doing a pretty good job on the whole, with a few minor exceptions.

As always, we here at Bringing Potential to Kings Cross focus (obviously) on issues that directly affect Kings Cross and the surrounding regions and thus shine a light on what can be done to improve Sydney’s late night economy. And who was it that sparked an interest in bettering Sydney’s late night economy? It was none other than Clover herself.  One of the better ideas she has had was to put pressure on the State Government to ease alcohol licensing laws and to support the opening of small bars in Sydney.

Here’s what Clover did back in 2008;

The State Government agreed to new laws to enable small bars, responding to the ‘raise the bar’ community campaign and Clover’s Liquor Amendment (Small Bars and Restaurants) Bill. There are now over 35 small bars in the CBD area with more opening almost daily it seems.

To some, it might seem contradictory to ease licensing restrictions to enable the opening of more liquor venues when we already have an increasing alcohol violence issue. Close them all down, I hear you say! But they’re not all bad, in fact small bars may just be the change Kings Cross is looking for.  It’s unfortunate they get a bad rep by the likes of the Hospitality Minister, George Souris. Souris said small bars had ”a lower level of surveillance, a lower level of supervision, a lower level of compliance” and that larger venues ”are better policed, better supervised than those smaller venues”. Does Souris really know what he’s talking about? Has he ever stepped inside one of Sydney’s fantastic small bars? My guess is no. http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/small-bars-hit-back-at-rebuke-by-minister-20120717-228jv.html

Let’s run through some of the reasons why small bars are a great inclusion to the late night economy and why we should encourage more to be opened in the Cross.

As Clover has said herself, smalls bar may just incite change. Small bars encourage a wider group of people to the city, not just people who come to incite violence and drink heavily. http://www.clovermoore.com.au/working-for-sydney/hot-topics/city-after-hours-a-good-night-for-all/

Small bars, said Martin O’Sullivan, president of the NSW Small Bars Association, create a more chilled out environment where people come to listen to a down tempo DJ. Being smaller, they obviously don’t attract the sheer numbers that large scale venues do, allowing these small venues to be more diverse in their offerings. For example in one night, punters could go from sipping high-class whiskey at The Baxter Inn to slamming Tequila and Mezcal at Tio’s or indulging in some knitting at Grandma’s. What else could you want on a Friday night?

O’Sullivan also rejected Souris’ claims that small bars have a lack of security and surveillance. A small bar can fit roughly 80-100 patrons at a time; that’s compared to the hundreds that large-scale venues can fit. A manager at a small bar can much more easily keep an eye on all patrons within the bar, and action can be taken immediately if need be. Security wouldn’t need to wade through the crowds of people to drag out someone people who are seen to be doing the wrong thing.

Trent Zimmerman, the deputy chief executive of the Tourism and Transport Forum said that these small bars are now catering for a diverse group of people whose needs were currently not met and are important in maintaining Sydney’s reputation as a global city. I couldn’t agree more. http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/small-bars-hit-back-at-rebuke-by-minister-20120717-228jv.html

One thing that could be done to aid in a solution for Kings Cross is to not close these small bars so damn early! Most small bars close between 12-1am. Who wants to go home at midnight on a Friday? Especially if you’ve had a few beers! By closing these bars in the CBD and surrounding areas means it practically forces people to head to the Cross, as it is one of the only areas where bars are open later than midnight.

Keep the small bars open later, open more small bars in a wide range of suburbs and give small bars the respect they deserve and mark my words, we will see a change. If you treat people like idiots and only give them large-scale clubs and sports bars for entertainment then they will act like idiots. But if you show Sydney siders the little bit of sophistication this city deserves then a sophisticated public is what you get in return.

I think I know who I’ll be voting for tomorrow….

Here’s the cute promo video that inspired this post

Cross Roads: Where to next for Sydney’s nightlife?

One Wednesday evening at the start of August I got wind a public forum at the Kings Cross Hotel. I wasn’t feeling particularly political that day but being a local resident I thought it would be vaguely beneficial and if it wasn’t I thought I could pretty easily sneak my way out of the crowded pub unnoticed. I did not think it would be as enthralling as it was. Me not being super vocal I didn’t stand up and voice my opinions or tell Cass Wilkinson (president of FBi radio) to shut up as one angry resident did. No, I just sat back and enjoyed the ride that ensued.

The forum was called after the tragic death of Thomas Kelly, as I’m sure by now we are all more than aware of. It’s undeniable that Kings Cross has some serious problems and it’s time for change. Fronting the panel was none other than Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore, fascinating sociologist James Arvanitarkis, Small Bars Association president Martin O’Sullivan, Solotel CEO Andrew Gibbs,  president of FBi radio Cass Wilkinson, Matthew Noffs from the Ted Noffs foundation, Guy Cooper from the Wayside Chapel and finally Inthemix editor Jack Tregoning.

I’ll aim to do a brief summary of the event but more information can be found on the Time Out Sydney website and through FBi radio

One of the most startling factors that were brought up by Clover was the fact that almost 20,000 people front up to the Cross on an average Friday and Saturday night. If this were to occur in any other part of the city it would be considered a special event and adequate planning, safety and transport measures would be put in place. Free shuttle buses would be arranged to get people home, waste management strategies would be put in place and there would definitely be increased security and police presence. But no, in Kings Cross, punters are left virtually to their own devices with almost no way of getting home after 1am. The major issue here is transport; in fact transport has caused many of Sydney’s problems but more on that further down. The last train to leave Kings Cross is 1.44am and they don’t start again until 5.14am and with buses not servicing the area late at night and taxis being considerably lacking people are stranded. It is during these times that the problems occur. People are drunk (often wasted) and hungry, venues are closing and public transport is practically non-existent. The lethal cocktail of alcohol, drugs, hunger pains, cold night air and bravado makes for a severe raise of tensions and which all to often leads to violence. Luckily there is a relatively quick solution to help combat this. INCREASE TRANSPORT TO THE AREA! Clover spoke a lot about this on the night of the forum. I guess now all we do is wait and see if she puts, quite literally, the wheels in motion.

But increasing transport to the area, as great as that would be, is a Band-Aid solution. What we really need is social change. Not unlike changing people’s attitudes to drink driving we need to change the trends surrounding alcohol consumption in Australia, King Cross being a microcosm of this. Sociologist James Arvanitarkis said something along the lines of Sydney being a frustrated city, which may well stem from our terrible public transport system. The people that live in this fast pace metropolis want to get to their destination as quickly and as easily as possible and when they can’t the frustration that builds has a flow on effect with everyone around them. We are frustrated at bike riders, we are frustrated at cars, we are frustrated with politicians and we are frustrated at each other. This frustration is released for a lot of people on a Friday and Saturday night in the Cross. Often it’s just in the form of a couple of beers with friends but a lot of the time it can escalate to much more. Perhaps even a punch in the face…As you can see, Sydney is in need of a holistic approach, an approach that doesn’t just look at the immediate problems but rather looks deeper in the cause of some of these major social issues.

Martin O’Sullivan, the president of the Small Bars Association of Sydney and owner of Grasshopper, a (believe it or not) small bar in the city believes that small bars are a step in the right direction. Small bars generally give a relaxed, chilled out vibe and aren’t usually the place where people go to get absolutely wasted.  If more small bars popped up around the city perhaps this type of drinking behaviour could become the norm. Maybe I’m just being optimistic…But these bars need to be given more freedom from local councils. Usually they close around 12am. People don’t want to go home at 12am on a Friday. They want to keep hanging out with their friends, drinking beers, whiskey and Mezcal but unfortunately Sydney’s late night economy being as undiversified as it is their only option is the pubs and clubs in -yep you guessed it- Kings Cross. And thus we have come full circle.

As you can probably tell I could keep writing about this endlessly but luckily for you dear reader I wont.

Please feel free to leave comments, suggestions or just your general thoughts.

As gift for making it this far down the page I leave you with this, our theme song.             King’s Cross- The Pet Shop Boys