11 ms·

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

176 points by nness 11y ago

basicplus2 11y ago
sounds like its more like Perth now...
- mking1024 11y ago
  Perth is actually doing an excellent job shaking off the 'dullsville' tag. A lot of restrictions have eased and the city is flourishing as a result. Hopefully even more so in the next few years with projects such as Elizabeth Quay and the Northbridge City Link finishing up.
  - fit2rule 11y ago
    Hell, Perth is doing everything it can to booze itself up .. it is after all, one of the first Australian cities to just let the Casino mafia take over.
cheerioty 11y ago
Reads like a joke, but is actually the bloody truth. In the last 6 months, ordering my favourite mix drink resulted in either: - Getting the drink, but had to drink it at the bar were they could "supervise" me! (no joke!) - Getting the drink, only when ordered seperately and "promise" to not mix it in the same glass - Get the first one, second one denied - Direct rejection, because "too late already/wrong day of the week" - Direct rejection, because "generally illegal" When I arrived in 2014, Sydney already suffered from a nightlife scene that was nowhere comparable with the ones in any other country I've visited so far. They at least flew in DJs from all over the world to keep people attracted. Now, "In late 2015, they banned parties on boats with more than one DJ." I refused (read postponed) an offer to go to California last year. Maybe it's time to reconsider.
- pedalpete 11y ago
  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'?
  - jclulow 11y ago
    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.
    - rbritton 11y ago
      In the US, Utah is very similar. Some places will sell you a "sidecar" shot with a mixed drink, but a lot won't. Hard alcohol is measured electronically to ensure it is exactly one ounce.
      - bigtones 11y ago
        And to the article authors point, that is because of religious reasons - in this case the Mormons.
    - EdwardDiego 11y ago
      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.
      - chris_wot 11y ago
        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.
stevebmark 11y ago
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 drink. This isn't out of line for a city, and there's nothing inherently bad about drinking. Sydney's youth just seems to be focused on it more than other cities I've visited. These laws were likely passed as reactionary safeguards. What are they reacting against? This article only comments on the laws mockingly and with satire, including linking to random blogs as sources. Can anyone comment on possible events that lead to these laws? My only opinion is that Sydney enjoys drinking more than the average city, and I'm curious if these "lockout" laws are an overreaction, or justified in some way.
- sqldba 11y ago
  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 full force as their head hits the concrete and likely dies in the process. There were a whole bunch of unprovoked attacks on that street one after the other on completely random innocent people at night time. It was a national disgrace, one minute you're just Joe Blow walking with your fiancee down the street and the next you're dead. This didn't happen just once, but week after week after week and a bunch of people were dead, and the newspapers were eating it up. So the government put these laws in place to stop it, and to be fair it seems to have worked as I haven't seen anyone talk about dying on that street in the news lately. Overall though I have split feelings. On the one hand we need to get together as a society and start putting an end to people who are overly aggressive and posing a risk to the rest of us. Sorry but that's the damned truth. If you're invading homes or punching absolutely random people in the street then you're just not going to fit in with the rest of us and it's time to go. It's us or them and I don't want to be a statistic. On the other hand it's a shame that as we're all too shy to implement that kind of thing, we get laws that put innocent people in the crossfire and suck the joy out of life for the rest of us. But at least you get to feel comfortable having all those dangerous people still on the street simmering away waiting to have one drink too many and kill others... yay for liberty.
danieltillett 11y ago
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.
- sydneysider 11y ago
  westies jacked up on roids.
  - chris_wot 11y ago
    This comment explains everything. Let me guess, you live in the Northern suburbs?
    - sydneysider 11y ago
      I don't understand what this has to do with anything. (and for the record, no, I don't, not eastern suburbs either).
      - chris_wot 11y ago
        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.
        sydneysider 11y ago
        weren't you trying to do the same? I wouldn't take it so personally. Hoxton park doesn't even qualify as westie.
- chris_wot 11y ago
  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.
Khaine 11y ago
There are to many moralists in Australia. They abhor people having a fun night out.
- chris_wot 11y ago
  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.
  - Khaine 11y ago
    Prove it. Alcohol consumption in Australia has been steadily falling, and yet only now is it a massive social problem.
    - chris_wot 11y ago
      Sure, I refer you to: https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/health-topics/alcohol-guidelines/alcohol-and-health-australia 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.
      - Khaine 11y ago
        So consumption has decreased and yet violence has increased? Alcohol consumption in and of itself is not a problem. What is a problem is the behaviours a minority of people exhibit when they consume alcohol. Why is it the majority of people have to suffer because of a minority of arseholes? Because of wowsers.
        chris_wot 11y ago
        How do you propose to prevent that minority from causing problems for the rest of us? I quite enjoy a drink myself, so I'd be interested in your solution.
fphhotchips 11y ago
I'm not sure that this is the only cause here. People kept dying in Sydney because of late night attacks. If that's not a disincentive to going out, I don't know what is. I don't agree with the lockout laws though, or the majority of alcohol-limiting laws in Australia (I live in Melbourne). They just smell of moralising.
lucaspiller 11y ago
This is the first time I've heard of this, but as I understand the new laws are: - No sales after 10pm for off-site consumption - No entrance after 1:30am - No alcohol sales in venues after 3am In the UK this has effectively been the law for a long time. The actual law allows 24hr licensing (for on-site consumption), but very few places have a license to sell alcohol after 1am. Why exactly have these laws so drastically caused problems in Sydney?
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
  Perhaps there were other factors.
- driverdan 11y ago
  As the article says, Sydney culture is different due to the previous laws. People didn't used to go to bars until late, 10:30 or 11:30. That means you have to either stay at one bar after 1:30 or just go home. Previously people bar hopped into the early morning.
brbsix 11y ago
Let Sydney be emblematic of city planning and nanny statism gone awry (as it always does).
reitanqild 11y ago
Sounds like Norway. I'm not much into drinks but there is a long-running joke (?) here that you cannot pour spirit into wine (spurit up/strengthening the wine), but you can very well pour wine into spirit (watering out the spirit). I think it goes back to the 70ties.
cube00 11y ago
At first I heard the falling crime stats and thought it's working but then you start seeing all the businesses going to the wall and you realise it isn't.
watmough 11y ago
My two abiding memories of nightlife in Aberdeen, Scotland are 1) Almost getting mugged - when I was not in the best part of the city admittedly, 2) Seeing a guy staggering about that had just been hit in the face with a broken bottle. A few episodes like that, add in sensationalist reporting and activist local politicians and you could easily imagine a situation where local night-life gets thrown out with the bathwater. People get drunk. They fight and they do stupid shit. It's what they do.
mceoin 11y ago
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.
- aplummer 11y ago
  I feel I should point out FWIW this is a state law and Melbourne is still fun
- greggman 11y ago
  While it might be better than Sydney, SF is not a good place for nightlife though. Coming from Tokyo where the standard nightlife routine is arrive at your clubbing area of choice around 12:30am (near last train) because you're stuck there until first train (~5am). So, pretty much all clubs and bars as well as many late night restaurants are open until 5am or later. When I came back to California I hated that my nightlife was basically forced to end at around 1:30am (LA or SF). Many other cities party all night.
pakled_engineer 11y ago
Vancouver, Canada when bars were forced to shut down at 2am, resulted in thousands of drunks pouring into the streets all at once and mass brawling with each other. Laws were changed to allow 4am last call and legal after hours, and the gigantic street brawls disappeared. A barwatch association was started to keep out chronic violent offenders and known gangsters from clubs and bars too which helped. There's also juiced up goofs here running around one punching random people while their friends film their crime and yell "worldstar" (worldstar hiphop) which is the site where all the recent knockout game idiocy originated.
exodust 11y ago
SOHO has closed! Didn't know. Last time I was there years ago, the whole club was high on MDMA. Personal space dissolves into nothing, your dancing becomes super smooth, your inner-calm is completely zen. Nobody is drunk. Nobody fighting. Nobody dosing off. People are fresh and energized until sunrise. Walking out into the sunrise is a good feeling. The drunken trashy streets are just places to avoid and navigate your way to other places or home. It's a sad irony that MDMA would actually stop the violence. It's simply not possible to descend into violent tendencies when your mind is expanded, as opposed to clouded by alcohol. "Sir, you've had enough to drink. Can I offer you an MDMA drink instead".. would cause tumble-weeds to blow through the emergency department hallways.
- kintamanimatt 11y ago
  As fun as MDMA is, it's horribly and cumulatively neurotoxic. Mass weekly usage would be a short term gain at the expense of a lot of long term health issues. MDMA and alcohol intoxication don't seem to be best friends either IIRC.
  - twic 11y ago
    Half the UK was on E for most of the '80s and '90s. The only sign of an epidemic of brain damage is that people have started buying Craig David records again.
  - exodust 11y ago
    Yeah, true, I wouldn't recommend MDMA when drunk. But after a couple of beers, fine though. Or even after a shot of tequila and a beer chaser, and maybe even another shot and another beer, even then some E would go down nicely! But I was referring more to a possible world where if drugs other than alcohol were legal, we'd see less blind drunk people causing problems. Can't wait for the stats to come out of USA for how pot legalization influences alcohol related crime and health issues. I suppose we'll need more time for those stats to come in.
atomicstack 11y ago
It's also now illegal to sell kebabs past midnight: http://stoneyroads.com/2016/01/there-is-now-a-lockout-law-for-kebab-eating http://stoneyroads.com/2016/01/there-is-now-a-lockout-law-fo... Native Sydney-sider, lived there for 25 years, not sure I'd enjoy living there any more.
exabrial 11y ago
And people actually -want- overregulation in America. This time it's under the guise of Sanders (who wants the government involved in every part of your life), and Trump, (who seeks to alienate congress). Here's the thing, large government just doesn't work. Learn from history.
Shalle135 11y ago
I'm personally from Stockholm but were in Sydney about a year ago and yeah I must say that your alcohol laws are pretty insane. After 12 you can't order this and after 1 you cant order that and so on. So silly that I couldn't buy drinks for my friends and that they had to go to the bar themselves to order it. Do they really believe that I would order 4 drinks for myself at each order?
floppydisk 11y ago
I was following the article for a while until it shifted and started blaming the politicians' religion as the driving force in the changes to the law. It sounds like the authors have an axe to grind. For instance, they use this quote as an example of the Police Commissioner being a teetotaler against drinking and justifying it according to religion: “In another foray into the state’s social and moral landscape, Mr Scipione says the rise in binge drinking among girls and young women is making them vulnerable to sexual assault, liaisons they may regret, psychological trauma, sexually transmitted infections and even a threat to their fertility.” The Sun-Morning Herald article they link to [1] reports the police commissioner pointing the journalists to a 2011 study coming out discussing the impacts of binge drinking on young females and the PC is reiterating the conclusions of the study and asking people to be aware of the risks of their behavior and take commonsense measures to ward off potential negative outcomes. I'm missing the part where he's a frothing totalitarian religious zealot out to impose a strict religious interpretation on the population. It's one thing to write a policy critique, which, I think the article mostly gets right and points out the impacts the laws are having on local entertainment and the impacts that has on other industries notorious for attracting and keeping you people, like technology. It's another thing to divest into an axe grinding tangent that ascribes malicious intent to politicians for religious reasons while providing spurious reasoning and support in the article. It's disingenuous to mix in personal opinion and interpretation of actions as verifiable fact without having links that show because A therefore B. [1] http://www.smh.com.au/national/health/girls-drink-pact-20111008-1levo.html http://www.smh.com.au/national/health/girls-drink-pact-20111...
skuunk1 11y ago
I think the main issue is that Sydney is so spread out and there is very little late night public transportation. That means a night out for most people ends with a very expensive taxi bill (Uber has helped somewhat though). If one can only go out drinking very occasionally, the tendency is to overdo it on those times you do.
daurnimator 11y ago
It goes further: http://stoneyroads.com/2016/01/there-is-now-a-lockout-law-for-kebab-eating http://stoneyroads.com/2016/01/there-is-now-a-lockout-law-fo...

176 points by nness 11y ago

basicplus2 11y ago

sounds like its more like Perth now...

mking1024 11y ago
Perth is actually doing an excellent job shaking off the 'dullsville' tag. A lot of restrictions have eased and the city is flourishing as a result. Hopefully even more so in the next few years with projects such as Elizabeth Quay and the Northbridge City Link finishing up.
- fit2rule 11y ago
  Hell, Perth is doing everything it can to booze itself up .. it is after all, one of the first Australian cities to just let the Casino mafia take over.

cheerioty 11y ago

Reads like a joke, but is actually the bloody truth. In the last 6 months, ordering my favourite mix drink resulted in either: - Getting the drink, but had to drink it at the bar were they could "supervise" me! (no joke!) - Getting the drink, only when ordered seperately and "promise" to not mix it in the same glass - Get the first one, second one denied - Direct rejection, because "too late already/wrong day of the week" - Direct rejection, because "generally illegal" When I arrived in 2014, Sydney already suffered from a nightlife scene that was nowhere comparable with the ones in any other country I've visited so far. They at least flew in DJs from all over the world to keep people attracted. Now, "In late 2015, they banned parties on boats with more than one DJ." I refused (read postponed) an offer to go to California last year. Maybe it's time to reconsider.

pedalpete 11y ago
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'?
- jclulow 11y ago
  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.
  - rbritton 11y ago
    In the US, Utah is very similar. Some places will sell you a "sidecar" shot with a mixed drink, but a lot won't. Hard alcohol is measured electronically to ensure it is exactly one ounce.
    - bigtones 11y ago
      And to the article authors point, that is because of religious reasons - in this case the Mormons.
  - EdwardDiego 11y ago
    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.
    - chris_wot 11y ago
      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.

stevebmark 11y ago

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 drink. This isn't out of line for a city, and there's nothing inherently bad about drinking. Sydney's youth just seems to be focused on it more than other cities I've visited. These laws were likely passed as reactionary safeguards. What are they reacting against? This article only comments on the laws mockingly and with satire, including linking to random blogs as sources. Can anyone comment on possible events that lead to these laws? My only opinion is that Sydney enjoys drinking more than the average city, and I'm curious if these "lockout" laws are an overreaction, or justified in some way.

sqldba 11y ago
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 full force as their head hits the concrete and likely dies in the process. There were a whole bunch of unprovoked attacks on that street one after the other on completely random innocent people at night time. It was a national disgrace, one minute you're just Joe Blow walking with your fiancee down the street and the next you're dead. This didn't happen just once, but week after week after week and a bunch of people were dead, and the newspapers were eating it up. So the government put these laws in place to stop it, and to be fair it seems to have worked as I haven't seen anyone talk about dying on that street in the news lately. Overall though I have split feelings. On the one hand we need to get together as a society and start putting an end to people who are overly aggressive and posing a risk to the rest of us. Sorry but that's the damned truth. If you're invading homes or punching absolutely random people in the street then you're just not going to fit in with the rest of us and it's time to go. It's us or them and I don't want to be a statistic. On the other hand it's a shame that as we're all too shy to implement that kind of thing, we get laws that put innocent people in the crossfire and suck the joy out of life for the rest of us. But at least you get to feel comfortable having all those dangerous people still on the street simmering away waiting to have one drink too many and kill others... yay for liberty.

danieltillett 11y ago

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.

sydneysider 11y ago
westies jacked up on roids.
- chris_wot 11y ago
  This comment explains everything. Let me guess, you live in the Northern suburbs?
  - sydneysider 11y ago
    I don't understand what this has to do with anything. (and for the record, no, I don't, not eastern suburbs either).
    - chris_wot 11y ago
      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.
      - sydneysider 11y ago
        weren't you trying to do the same? I wouldn't take it so personally. Hoxton park doesn't even qualify as westie.
chris_wot 11y ago
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.

Khaine 11y ago

There are to many moralists in Australia. They abhor people having a fun night out.

chris_wot 11y ago
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.
- Khaine 11y ago
  Prove it. Alcohol consumption in Australia has been steadily falling, and yet only now is it a massive social problem.
  - chris_wot 11y ago
    Sure, I refer you to: https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/health-topics/alcohol-guidelines/alcohol-and-health-australia 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.
    - Khaine 11y ago
      So consumption has decreased and yet violence has increased? Alcohol consumption in and of itself is not a problem. What is a problem is the behaviours a minority of people exhibit when they consume alcohol. Why is it the majority of people have to suffer because of a minority of arseholes? Because of wowsers.
      - chris_wot 11y ago
        How do you propose to prevent that minority from causing problems for the rest of us? I quite enjoy a drink myself, so I'd be interested in your solution.

fphhotchips 11y ago

I'm not sure that this is the only cause here. People kept dying in Sydney because of late night attacks. If that's not a disincentive to going out, I don't know what is. I don't agree with the lockout laws though, or the majority of alcohol-limiting laws in Australia (I live in Melbourne). They just smell of moralising.

lucaspiller 11y ago

This is the first time I've heard of this, but as I understand the new laws are: - No sales after 10pm for off-site consumption - No entrance after 1:30am - No alcohol sales in venues after 3am In the UK this has effectively been the law for a long time. The actual law allows 24hr licensing (for on-site consumption), but very few places have a license to sell alcohol after 1am. Why exactly have these laws so drastically caused problems in Sydney?

TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
Perhaps there were other factors.
driverdan 11y ago
As the article says, Sydney culture is different due to the previous laws. People didn't used to go to bars until late, 10:30 or 11:30. That means you have to either stay at one bar after 1:30 or just go home. Previously people bar hopped into the early morning.

brbsix 11y ago

Let Sydney be emblematic of city planning and nanny statism gone awry (as it always does).

reitanqild 11y ago

Sounds like Norway. I'm not much into drinks but there is a long-running joke (?) here that you cannot pour spirit into wine (spurit up/strengthening the wine), but you can very well pour wine into spirit (watering out the spirit). I think it goes back to the 70ties.

cube00 11y ago

At first I heard the falling crime stats and thought it's working but then you start seeing all the businesses going to the wall and you realise it isn't.

watmough 11y ago

My two abiding memories of nightlife in Aberdeen, Scotland are 1) Almost getting mugged - when I was not in the best part of the city admittedly, 2) Seeing a guy staggering about that had just been hit in the face with a broken bottle. A few episodes like that, add in sensationalist reporting and activist local politicians and you could easily imagine a situation where local night-life gets thrown out with the bathwater. People get drunk. They fight and they do stupid shit. It's what they do.

mceoin 11y ago

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.

aplummer 11y ago
I feel I should point out FWIW this is a state law and Melbourne is still fun
greggman 11y ago
While it might be better than Sydney, SF is not a good place for nightlife though. Coming from Tokyo where the standard nightlife routine is arrive at your clubbing area of choice around 12:30am (near last train) because you're stuck there until first train (~5am). So, pretty much all clubs and bars as well as many late night restaurants are open until 5am or later. When I came back to California I hated that my nightlife was basically forced to end at around 1:30am (LA or SF). Many other cities party all night.

pakled_engineer 11y ago

Vancouver, Canada when bars were forced to shut down at 2am, resulted in thousands of drunks pouring into the streets all at once and mass brawling with each other. Laws were changed to allow 4am last call and legal after hours, and the gigantic street brawls disappeared. A barwatch association was started to keep out chronic violent offenders and known gangsters from clubs and bars too which helped. There's also juiced up goofs here running around one punching random people while their friends film their crime and yell "worldstar" (worldstar hiphop) which is the site where all the recent knockout game idiocy originated.

exodust 11y ago

SOHO has closed! Didn't know. Last time I was there years ago, the whole club was high on MDMA. Personal space dissolves into nothing, your dancing becomes super smooth, your inner-calm is completely zen. Nobody is drunk. Nobody fighting. Nobody dosing off. People are fresh and energized until sunrise. Walking out into the sunrise is a good feeling. The drunken trashy streets are just places to avoid and navigate your way to other places or home. It's a sad irony that MDMA would actually stop the violence. It's simply not possible to descend into violent tendencies when your mind is expanded, as opposed to clouded by alcohol. "Sir, you've had enough to drink. Can I offer you an MDMA drink instead".. would cause tumble-weeds to blow through the emergency department hallways.

kintamanimatt 11y ago
As fun as MDMA is, it's horribly and cumulatively neurotoxic. Mass weekly usage would be a short term gain at the expense of a lot of long term health issues. MDMA and alcohol intoxication don't seem to be best friends either IIRC.
- twic 11y ago
  Half the UK was on E for most of the '80s and '90s. The only sign of an epidemic of brain damage is that people have started buying Craig David records again.
- exodust 11y ago
  Yeah, true, I wouldn't recommend MDMA when drunk. But after a couple of beers, fine though. Or even after a shot of tequila and a beer chaser, and maybe even another shot and another beer, even then some E would go down nicely! But I was referring more to a possible world where if drugs other than alcohol were legal, we'd see less blind drunk people causing problems. Can't wait for the stats to come out of USA for how pot legalization influences alcohol related crime and health issues. I suppose we'll need more time for those stats to come in.

atomicstack 11y ago

It's also now illegal to sell kebabs past midnight: http://stoneyroads.com/2016/01/there-is-now-a-lockout-law-for-kebab-eating http://stoneyroads.com/2016/01/there-is-now-a-lockout-law-fo... Native Sydney-sider, lived there for 25 years, not sure I'd enjoy living there any more.

exabrial 11y ago

And people actually -want- overregulation in America. This time it's under the guise of Sanders (who wants the government involved in every part of your life), and Trump, (who seeks to alienate congress). Here's the thing, large government just doesn't work. Learn from history.

Shalle135 11y ago

I'm personally from Stockholm but were in Sydney about a year ago and yeah I must say that your alcohol laws are pretty insane. After 12 you can't order this and after 1 you cant order that and so on. So silly that I couldn't buy drinks for my friends and that they had to go to the bar themselves to order it. Do they really believe that I would order 4 drinks for myself at each order?

floppydisk 11y ago

I was following the article for a while until it shifted and started blaming the politicians' religion as the driving force in the changes to the law. It sounds like the authors have an axe to grind. For instance, they use this quote as an example of the Police Commissioner being a teetotaler against drinking and justifying it according to religion: “In another foray into the state’s social and moral landscape, Mr Scipione says the rise in binge drinking among girls and young women is making them vulnerable to sexual assault, liaisons they may regret, psychological trauma, sexually transmitted infections and even a threat to their fertility.” The Sun-Morning Herald article they link to [1] reports the police commissioner pointing the journalists to a 2011 study coming out discussing the impacts of binge drinking on young females and the PC is reiterating the conclusions of the study and asking people to be aware of the risks of their behavior and take commonsense measures to ward off potential negative outcomes. I'm missing the part where he's a frothing totalitarian religious zealot out to impose a strict religious interpretation on the population. It's one thing to write a policy critique, which, I think the article mostly gets right and points out the impacts the laws are having on local entertainment and the impacts that has on other industries notorious for attracting and keeping you people, like technology. It's another thing to divest into an axe grinding tangent that ascribes malicious intent to politicians for religious reasons while providing spurious reasoning and support in the article. It's disingenuous to mix in personal opinion and interpretation of actions as verifiable fact without having links that show because A therefore B. [1] http://www.smh.com.au/national/health/girls-drink-pact-20111008-1levo.html http://www.smh.com.au/national/health/girls-drink-pact-20111...

skuunk1 11y ago

I think the main issue is that Sydney is so spread out and there is very little late night public transportation. That means a night out for most people ends with a very expensive taxi bill (Uber has helped somewhat though). If one can only go out drinking very occasionally, the tendency is to overdo it on those times you do.

daurnimator 11y ago

It goes further: http://stoneyroads.com/2016/01/there-is-now-a-lockout-law-for-kebab-eating http://stoneyroads.com/2016/01/there-is-now-a-lockout-law-fo...