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Sydney's fun police have put out the light of the nightlife

theguardian.com

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Re: Sydney's fun police have put out the light of the nightlife

#31

Post by EdwardDiego »

jclulow wrote: post #17
pedalpete wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your favorite drink? I live in Sydney too (Bondi), and agree the new rules are ridiculous, but what's this about 'not mix it in the same glass'?

This is nonsense they trialled first in Newcastle. Prohibiting the sale of a double shot of spirits in one glass; eventually forbidding the sale of any neat spirits at all. Want a nip of expensive scotch? Hope it's still good drowned in soft drink.

Oh God. I travelled to Newcastle to meet friends and went out on the town on a Friday night. My big mistake was waiting until 10:30pm to depart, because nearly everything was closed or getting ready to close at midnight - Newcastle's "favourite cocktail bar" was unable to make any cocktails.

I'm from Christchurch, and we have a better nightlife than Newcastle, and our CBD got smooshed by an earthquake.

Re: Sydney's fun police have put out the light of the nightlife

#32

Post by EdwardDiego »

jclulow wrote: post #17
pedalpete wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your favorite drink? I live in Sydney too (Bondi), and agree the new rules are ridiculous, but what's this about 'not mix it in the same glass'?

This is nonsense they trialled first in Newcastle. Prohibiting the sale of a double shot of spirits in one glass; eventually forbidding the sale of any neat spirits at all. Want a nip of expensive scotch? Hope it's still good drowned in soft drink.

Oh God. I travelled to Newcastle to meet friends and went out on the town on a Friday night. My big mistake was waiting until 10:30pm to depart, because nearly everything was closed or getting ready to close at midnight - Newcastle's "favourite cocktail bar" was unable to make any cocktails.

I'm from Christchurch, and we have a better nightlife than Newcastle, and our CBD got smooshed by an earthquake.

Re: Sydney's fun police have put out the light of the nightlife

#33

Post by kirrent »

sydneysider wrote: post #22
SyneRyder wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one-punch deaths, but not one-punch assaults. There's even more of those. Tucked away further in the article is a quote that says it is an occurrence every club night: "St Vincent Hospital's emergency department director, Gordian Fulde, treats four or five ''absolutely obvious'' king-hits while working at the hospital every Friday or Saturday night."

Instead of destroying small business and bringing in laws which detrimentally affect everyone, the state government should create examples of the offenders (the idiots that thing its cool to knock someone out), throw the book at them. strengthen the laws in a way that limits the potential for misuse, but sends a strong message to the drunken yobs, "if you do this, you're toast". These lockout laws don't fix anything,…

They did strengthen the laws. There's some pretty strong mandatory minimums in place now for a wide array of late night violence offences.

Re: Sydney's fun police have put out the light of the nightlife

#34

Post by hanoz »

cheerioty wrote: post #18
pedalpete wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your favorite drink? I live in Sydney too (Bondi), and agree the new rules are ridiculous, but what's this about 'not mix it in the same glass'?

Jägermeister+RedBull ... Don't judge me ;)

Have you considered the UK, where on occasions one can easily feel like the only one in the pub not drinking Jägerbombs, and drinking to massive excess generally is a proud national pastime.

Re: Sydney's fun police have put out the light of the nightlife

#35

Post by chris_wot »

tajen wrote: post #28
sqldba wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Innocent people kept getting murdered on King St (a popular bar and night life destination, as well as prostitution or at least erotic joints, and possibly some drug use.) A few years back there was a spate of "King Hits" which is when one person hits another person in the head and immediately knocks them unconscious, usually through random chance rather than any kind of skill, but meaning that person then bears the…

For those who don't know Sydney: Kings Cross is a 400m street packed with clubs. It does look shady with its erotic clubs, but short enough that you're out in a few minutes. Newspapers have a focus over night crime in Kings Cross, I've always wondered there was a political agenda or whether that was statistically abnormal. Alternatives are downtown (less dense in clubs), Oxford St (gay clubs) and farther neighbourhoo…

They are. The lockout laws actually come from Newcastle, which had an even worse problem. Alcohol fueled violence has been and remains a massive problem in Australia. In fact, drinking in Australia remains a massive problem: we have some of the worst cases of binge-drinking and alcoholism rates in the world.

We have a list of dangerous pubs in NSW:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-27/north-coast-pub-tops-l...

Re: Sydney's fun police have put out the light of the nightlife

#36

Post by chris_wot »

EdwardDiego wrote: post #31
jclulow wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is nonsense they trialled first in Newcastle. Prohibiting the sale of a double shot of spirits in one glass; eventually forbidding the sale of any neat spirits at all. Want a nip of expensive scotch? Hope it's still good drowned in soft drink.

Oh God. I travelled to Newcastle to meet friends and went out on the town on a Friday night. My big mistake was waiting until 10:30pm to depart, because nearly everything was closed or getting ready to close at midnight - Newcastle's "favourite cocktail bar" was unable to make any cocktails. I'm from Christchurch, and we have a better nightlife than Newcastle, and our CBD got smooshed by an earthquake.

Your chances of being assaulted in Newcastle before the lockout laws were very high. I doubt you would be having much fun in the Emergency Department, getting stitched up.

Re: Sydney's fun police have put out the light of the nightlife

#37

Post by weeksie »

stevebmark wrote: post #4

I'm an outsider to Sydney and Australia, and I'm a regular visitor. This article rings of an insider perspective, full of "we" statements. It has a vibe of personal anger and personal overreaction. What I'm genuinely curious about is the events that lead to the formation of these laws. Again, as an outsider, the main thing to do in Sydney is drink. A lot. The main thing my friends want to do after work in Sydney is d…

When I first immigrated to Australia I was shocked at the tone that journalists used, even in mainstream publications. Turns out it's just an Aussie thing. People can argue about the merits of that tone but that article fits pretty well with Aussie journal style, especially for an editorial.

Re: Sydney's fun police have put out the light of the nightlife

#38

Post by chris_wot »

sydneysider wrote: post #22
SyneRyder wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one-punch deaths, but not one-punch assaults. There's even more of those. Tucked away further in the article is a quote that says it is an occurrence every club night: "St Vincent Hospital's emergency department director, Gordian Fulde, treats four or five ''absolutely obvious'' king-hits while working at the hospital every Friday or Saturday night."

Instead of destroying small business and bringing in laws which detrimentally affect everyone, the state government should create examples of the offenders (the idiots that thing its cool to knock someone out), throw the book at them. strengthen the laws in a way that limits the potential for misuse, but sends a strong message to the drunken yobs, "if you do this, you're toast". These lockout laws don't fix anything,…

The media did. There's not much point in making an example out of drunk people, because violent drunk people aren't thinking of the consequences.

The only way of making this work would be a register of offenders who can't go to pubs because of their drunkenness. Given that we tried to have mandatory pre-commitment for gamblers (which allowed them to gamble, but put limits on it) and this utterly failed, I'm not surprised that the government realised that lockout laws were the only way forward.

Incidentally, do you have any facts to back up that lockout laws are "sabotaging" the NSW economy?

As for not BBQ'ing in a Strata property - that's ill-informed. There are currently a set of amendments that hopefully will be enacted by July 2016 that prevent people's smoke from drifting into adjoining properties. The amendments allow a ban order to be made if the tenant makes a nuisance or hazard through their actions. If the tenant doesn't comply, then they get taken to the tribunal, who can then fine them a lot of money.

Don't see what the issue is here. If your cigarette or BBQ smoke is interfering with another tenant, then you should be prevented from doing this.

P.S. Malcolm Turnbull knows better than to interfere with State matters, given he's a Federal politician.

Re: Sydney's fun police have put out the light of the nightlife

#40

Post by chris_wot »

syllogism wrote: post #8
sqldba wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Innocent people kept getting murdered on King St (a popular bar and night life destination, as well as prostitution or at least erotic joints, and possibly some drug use.) A few years back there was a spate of "King Hits" which is when one person hits another person in the head and immediately knocks them unconscious, usually through random chance rather than any kind of skill, but meaning that person then bears the…

It was in King's Cross, not King St. And I believe the number of people who died is two.

That's Kings Cross, and the figures were quick high for assaults. Kings Cross isn't even a gazetted area.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/apr/16/assaults-in-k...

The sheer number of assaults being treated at St Vincent's Hospital caused the head of the emergency department to describe it as a warzone. Someone of that stature doesn't say this sort of thing lightly!

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-26/professor-gordian-fuld...

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