Do The Lock Out Laws Affect The Eastern Beaches?

By Dan Hutton on April 1, 2016 in

Photo: Victoria Bitter

In February 2014, Sydney’s ‘lock out laws’ were introduced. And they soberly remain. Bars and clubs in Kings Cross and in Sydney’s ‘entertainment precinct’ cannot allow entry to patrons after 1:30am. They cannot serve alcohol after 3am. After midnight, they cannot serve shots, doubles and pre-mixed drinks, and customers cannot buy more than four drinks at a time. Statewide, the purchase of take-away alcohol must cease at 10pm.

The Eastern Beaches area is exempt from these laws. Shots aplenty can flow at 2am as new customers walk in the door. As such, several questions arise. Does this mean that there has been a displacement of alcohol-fuelled violence to the east, as has reportedly occurred in Newtown? Are Eastern Beaches businesses suffering or profiting? And what of the residents?

A quick look at the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research website reveals that there has not been a notable increase in non-domestic assaults reported by police in the Eastern Suburbs since March 2014. But displaced violence is not the only possible ramification. Business is changing.

“We have most likely benefited across the bar from the lock outs as punters and hospitality staff have little choice once things close elsewhere,” Luke Prout, licensee of the Robin Hood Hotel (closing time 3am), told The Beast.

But the Robin Hood’s bottle shop has not fared so well. Manager Matt Chessell explained that employees’ work hours have been cut by up to 12 hours a week and “weekly sales are still affected by the earlier closing times”.

Waverley Council firmly stated that there have not been “any changes to the nightlife in Waverley because of the lock out laws in the city” but it seems that a number of bars in the area are aware of, and trying to capitalise on, the attraction they now hold as venues exempt from the laws. Spring Street Social in Bondi Junction, for example, explicitly states on the ‘Location’ page of its website that it has ‘NO LOCK OUTS!!!’.

Despite the local exemption from the lock outs laws, a number of young Eastern Suburbs residents are still frustrated by the restrictions elsewhere. Alexander McDonald, a 22 year-old musician from Clovelly, laments what the lock out laws have done to Sydney’s live music scene.

“There are now an extremely limited amount of venues to play… the lockout laws are just another blow to a suffering social landscape,” he said.

Critically, there is an increasing animosity between young people and the police and state government. Young people feel that they are being treated unfairly, like naughty children who are not to be trusted late at night, when in actual fact the incidents that led to the lock out laws being imposed occurred before 10:30pm. And when such an intense resentment of authority exists, history tells us that conflict generally ensues.

A spokesperson for Liquor and Gaming NSW told The Beast “the Government’s statutory review of the lock out and cease alcohol laws has recently commenced”. As such, only time will tell if the laws are altered or rescinded. It seems that the hope of the youth lies firmly on the side of revocation.