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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

#71

Post by mceoin »

I have just returned to Sydney after 5 years in SF. I grew up and worked in the neighborhoods most affected by the lockout-laws, so have experienced the before and after. I've seen the parties, I've seen the punch-ups, I've seen the drug overdoses and the drag queens. The city I remembered had a vibrant culture and a heady mixture of people that comes with any cosmopolitain city around the world. It wasn't perfect, but it was fun.

Coming back, I have found the mood here to be stifling, and am astonished by how dead the city/inner-east has become - it's a total ghost-town after hours. I complained from afar when I heard Hugo's had shut down (I remember when Sneaky Sound System got their start there), and I always thought certain RSA laws were over the top when I was a bartender myself, but things have gone beyond a joke. These laws are sucking the life out of Sydney.

The problem here is one of culture. While our Prime Minister sets about promoting an "Innovation Nation", the foundations for attracting talent are further reaching than any capital gains tax reform or optimistic prose can provide. If Australia is to have a vibrant tech sector, we need to recognize that top talent comes from the fringe - as do entrepreneurs, empirically. Regulation may drive a good media headline ("Government is doing something!") but in this law of unintended consequences, it will only hasten the funnel of free-thinkers leaving our shores.

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

#72

Post by fian »

chris_wot wrote: post #42
danieltillett wrote: post #19

Sydney has never really had a good night life. I wonder what has changed over the years to make people (both men and women) so much more aggressive when they get drunk. My personal observation is young men are much more muscular than my generation were − maybe all this violence is being driven by testosterone and/or droids.

It has always been this violent. However, community attitudes have changed, we no longer accept that alcohol-fueled violence is acceptable. It used to be, and isn't any more. It used to be acceptable in Sydney to drive home drunk. If you admitted you drove home drunk now, you'd be rightly pilloried.

I agree there has always been an amount of violence. In the past 15-20 years, at least in my opinion, there has been an escalation in the severity of the violence.

As a 20 year old, going out to a pub or club, there was always the risk of getting involved in a fight. At the time that probably would have meant a few punches, probably to the body and a lot of pushing and shoving. We mostly drank beer and maybe some spirits later in the evening (Bourbon and Coke/Scotch and Dry etc). Only fit people and body builders went to the gym.

By my 30's glassing had become a thing in Australia, and quite often women were the perpetrators. So many the pubs and clubs switched to plastic jugs and "glasses". There were a lot more alco-pops (premixed soft drink with vodka) being consumed. More people were going to a gym and boxercise/body combat classes were becoming popular.

Sometime during my 30's Redbull and Vodka (or some other spirit) was the drink of choice for the 20-something set. A lot of people started going to the gym, with the guys training for bulk.

The two trends of increasing consumption of spirits in sugary and caffeinated mixers plus boxing training and bulking up a the gym, to me seem to be underlying causes of the increased severity of the violence.

Drinking beer most of the night makes you slower and sleepier. Drinking sugary soft drinks instead makes you more energetic and less sleepy. Drinking Redbull and other energy drinks means you are now wide awake, twitchy and drunk at the same time.

Combine that with some boxing training/muscle building and the stupid fights over spilled drinks/girls etc will get ugly.

I would prefer to see alco-pops and Redbull as a mixer banned from licensed premises.

Of course, beyond this is the huge problem with Ice/Methamphetamine use in Australia. The mining boom was something of a driver of this as ice is one of the only drugs that will clear your system fast so you won't test positive if you get randomly screened at work.

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

#73

Post by aplummer »

mceoin wrote: post #71

I have just returned to Sydney after 5 years in SF. I grew up and worked in the neighborhoods most affected by the lockout-laws, so have experienced the before and after. I've seen the parties, I've seen the punch-ups, I've seen the drug overdoses and the drag queens. The city I remembered had a vibrant culture and a heady mixture of people that comes with any cosmopolitain city around the world. It wasn't perfect, b…

I feel I should point out FWIW this is a state law and Melbourne is still fun

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

#74

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

johnchristopher wrote: post #67
varjag wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ..there's a lot of conservative christian politicians in power at the federal level, and at some state levels, and they don't reflect modern australian values. How come they don't, if they consistently keep getting elected?

A wild guess: The most influential backers are Christians. They have the money to lend to the party so it can build effective marketing and political campaign to go after the rest of the voters.

Money - conservative Christians don't usually cause trouble for corporations.

Age - conservative retirement-age voters are far more likely to vote than the 18-30 demo.

Networking - churches can, and do, bully-pulpit entire parishes.

So policy is far further to the right than the population median.

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

#75

Post by chris_wot »

sydneysider wrote: post #47
chris_wot wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment explains everything. Let me guess, you live in the Northern suburbs?

I don't understand what this has to do with anything. (and for the record, no, I don't, not eastern suburbs either).

I had a feeling you might say this. Funny how you claim you don't understand the relevance of stereotyping people based on where they live geographically.

"westies jacked up on roids" indeed.

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

#76

Post by chris_wot »

Khaine wrote: post #66
chris_wot wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moralising against the moralists, huh? There are far too many assaults caused by alcohol, and the levels of alcoholism and domestic violence caused by alcohol in Australia is a real problem.

Prove it. Alcohol consumption in Australia has been steadily falling, and yet only now is it a massive social problem.

Sure, I refer you to:

https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/health-topics/alcohol-guidelines/al...

Actually, alcohol consumption has always been a problem. It is only now that we are even beginning to try to tackle the problem.

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

#77

Post by chris_wot »

girvo wrote: post #53
chris_wot wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 surpr…

> Incidentally, do you have any facts to back up that lockout laws are "sabotaging" the NSW economy? Not the economy, but they're killing the nightlife and live music sector. You may not care about that, but I do.

That was killed by poker machines.

Though I'm not sure why you actually need to serve alcohol to enjoy live music. As for killing the nightlife sector, if the nightlife sector relies on people drinking copious quantities of alcohol, then it might not be a bad thing. Maybe they should evolve to be less dependent on alcohol.

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

#78

Post by madaxe_again »

nl wrote: post #65
madaxe_again wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no info on what effect the licensing changes had, but I can vouch that Newcastle could be genuinely scary on a Saturday night. You haven't lived until you've hidden under a table while pint glass missiles hurtle overhead around a revolving dance floor on a boat on the Tyne.

I think that's the other Newcastle. This one is north of Sydney (I guess they are both north of Sydney, but there's a bit of a hike to the one on the Tyne...)

Hah - right, yes, I'm talking about the one in England, which apparently has quite a bit in common with its antipodean counterpart.

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

#79

Post by chris_wot »

sydneysider wrote: post #45
chris_wot wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 surpr…

My issue is that we even need laws to deal with this, people can have horrible neighbours (you must remember the fence wars saga), what's to stop your horrible neighbour from making your life painful because you grill up some food once in a while.

Please, cry me a river. Of course you need laws to deal with obnoxious people who live in close proximity to you. There are wars over fences, but the law handles that pretty well now.

The thing stopping your horrible neighbour from making your life painful is that they must have evidence of your wrongdoing. If you "grill up some food once in a while" and smoke from your grill goes into their property, then what's to stop them from deliberately doing the same to you?

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

#80

Post by meric »

switch007 wrote: post #59
hanoz wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you don't start drinking at 5pm on a Friday, puke up twice, consume your body weight in kebab meat and then go for a greasy fry-up in the morning, you're basically a boring sod.

As a Sydneysider I prefer to write a couple of hundred lines of code and play a couple of hours of Dota 2 with my best mate on a Friday night.
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