One of the great tragedies of the Sydney pub scene was the demise of the Century Tavern. A dingy, dank pub above the Burger King in George St it was a place of legend. Anyone, goths, students, geeks, blue collar and white collar workers could hang out, have a few drinks and not feel out of place. It was a lovely place and I vaguely remember a few evenings in the old world, beer stained environs.
Now after a not-needed renovation it is known as the Century Bar and the funky charm and carpet that was like flypaper are gone. It is a crying shame (and well missed). And sadly the friendly Sydney pub does seem endangered. In yesterday’s Herald I came across another scourge of the Sydney pub scene. Along with developers and NIMBYs, the desire for pokie licenses is destroying the hallowed local.
Elizabeth Farrelly sticks a well deserved boot into NSW’s antiquated licensing laws and hankering for pokie palaces. Farrelly reveals that her beloved local was sold so that the eight poker machine licenses could transferred elsewhere. The site is up for development and it is unlikely it will be another friendly pub.
A good refurb can rescue a dying pub. But the obsession with turning pubs into pokie palaces or buying pubs simply for the pokie licenses is disturbing. It may make money but destroys the very social nature of a public establishment. Now I do think gambling is something between yourself and your personal saviour. I dabble once or twice during the footy season, the Melbourne cup and the odd Powerball ticket. But I have better things to throw my money at and gambling never pays.
Pubs are a social place. People go to pubs to have a yarn, check out the preferred sex, see a band, enjoy the ambiance, get smashed, cheer their footy team home or watch the world go buy over a few beers. Pokie palaces are nothing more than a wasteland of zombiefied punters. The good pubs confine pokies to a back room. I lived in Balmain for about four years and got to call The London my local. The Balmain pubs did well in pushing the gaming rooms out of the way. They publicans knew that pubs thrive on being part of the community.
Farrelly also bemoans the unlikelihood of wine bar or similar venue emerging due to licensing restrictions. Currently you need to order a meal to have a drink in NSW restaurant. This puts the kibosh on anyone wanting to enjoy a bottle of plonk alfresco at a cute little inner-city or beach side establishment. Liberalisation of licensing laws should be considered along with the impact of alcohol abuse. I have no problem with that. However I don’t see any compelling issues with relaxing licensing laws to allow more sophisticated imbibing.
Late summer evenings chatting over a glass of wine at a restaurant without needing a meal. Or simply wandering down to your local to have a few beers without the invasive din of the pokies. What a Sydney would that be.
Sadly, NSW’s joke liquor laws are unlikely to change as long as the AHA and Clubs NSW have such political clout at the State Govt level.
The only reason that you can’t go to a cafe and have a beer or a glass of wine, while your companion has a coffee is because the lobby groups have the Govt (and probably the opposition as well) running scared. Look at the back down over poker machine tax for an example.
I mourned the century tavern also, although I was probably past going there often now, there was many a fond memory of drinking there before or long after a movie. As a student, you could drink there with out having the feel of being out of place in one of the schmick city drinking establishments. It was, as one of my friends commented, like a Newtown pub in the middle of the city.
You can in Brisvegas!
Forgot to say that I lament the demise of the Century Tavern too. It was a wonderfully dingy place, and one of the very few left in town where you didn’t have to sell your car to get a round of drinks.
One of my friends once tried to slide down the bannister and plummeted down on to the bouncer. I guess that’s another story though…
“You can in Brisvegas”
and Melbourne and Canberra and Wellington fergawdsake. It’s a joke I tell ya.
So Sydney’s a “world city”, hey?
Kim, that’s a crack that hits the mark.
Another thing helping to destroy pubs (especially in the inner city) are new home owner. Thye buy a house next door to a pub and then start whingeing about the noise. WTF, you buy a house next to a pub and expect it to suburban quiet?
I know one pub in Newtown that ended up buying neighbouring houses because the new owners kept lodging noise complaints.
He was also forced to put cameras outside to monitor those leaving the pub because of noise complaints. It was intersting though because he was able to show that the noise wasn’t pub patrons but restaurant patrons.
Remember many a boozy night after finishing lectures.The Century was never any good after they renovated.
I too mourn the demise of the Century, even though I long stopped going there. It’s the fact that you can’t get that atmosphere in the city anymore, all students deserved to experience it!
Pollytickedoff, I don’t know if you’re talking about the same pub in Newtown but one recently had to erect a massive wall because of (I assume) new home owners. If you live that close to King St WTF do you expect? It still remains a dingy pub though with a lot of charm. Another is the Carlisle Castle that has done its best to cordon off the pokies in a ’shame’ room. It still feels like an old-fasioned place where everyone knows you (I don’t know if that’s forunate or not…). I better stop, this is starting to sound like a Cheers episode.
No Georg, not the same one, but I would imagine that most of the pubs in inner city are experiencing similar problems.
The Carlisle is another of my regular locals. Like the fact that because it is the back streets it is largely unknown to those who come to Newtown to be cool
I know, I love the fact that you wouldn’t know it was there unless you were down that way a lot. Which I am. Cos I live there. (In that area, not at the Carlisle!)
Now the Bank is being ‘revamped’ there are precious few decent pubs in what should really be suburb full of them.
The Carlisle Castle is a good pub, so is the Courthouse.
…
I know what you mean about nostalgia, Georg, I mourn the loss to gentrification of the pub in Leichhardt (best left nameless) where I and my colleagues did our public underage drinking. They didn’t used to bat an eyelid when we’d come in in school uniform and order rounds.
Nowadays not only are the schoolkids banned by the licencing fascisti, it’s got a glass front so you can see inside from the street.
See!
Inside!
From the street!
No pub should EVER have a glass wall onto the street. What is it? A fish bowl?
Your comment reminded me of (I’m assuming) another pub in Leichhardt where women of a certain persuasion used to gather. I find it so sad to drive past it now and see it almost derelict.
I know the one you mean, though I can’t remember its name. It’s true, the walls around there no longer echo to the sounds of well-tuned motorcycles.
…
Best pub in the Inner West of Sydney is the Forest Lodge in Glebe. No question about it, all correspondence disputing the matter will be sent directly to the round filing cabinet.
Traditional pubs probably don’t have much of a future, to be brutal about it, because of the bourgeoisification of the rump of the working class. Different democraphics and customer demand means the face of the inner city will continually change.
Capitalism is like that — it’s about constant churn and change, about things not staying the same. The Melbounre CBD was a truly beautiful Victorian city once, and still is in pockets and patches. But it’s nothing like the town it once was. Change is inevitable and irressistable.
Not that there’s anything wrong with nostalgia.
Georg, yes agree about the courthouse.
Do you remeber a series on ABC a few years ago that featured Machine Gun Fellation called Love Hurts. The courthouse was the pub they used.
My favourite scene was when he destroyed the poker machine.
Sorry, it was Liam who mentioned the courthouse (although Georg is probably familiar with it too:) )
Can anyone explain to me why all these pub makeovers end up looking the same as every other pub that has been madeover?
Rob - nostalgia ain’t what it used to be, but I similarly miss the passing of the traditional pub. When I was growing up in Canberra (no, that’s not an oxymoron folks) it was a tradition to go to the Dicko, at lunchtime and in school uniform, on the day you turned 18 for your first legal drink.
Yep, I am familiar with the Courthouse, that’s the one with the wall. I was there last night (ahem). My son is a fan of their calamari.
For truly awful makeovers I don’t think you can go past the Zanzi Bar. Or whatever it’s called. From the Oxford to that?
I can’t think of a single issue that would change my voting patterns faster than the possibility of introducing pokies to WA.
Pokies aside we must surely have the crappiest liquor laws in the country or here in WA. I’d be shocked if Sydney’s were worse. Wouldn’t surpise me if I can’t buy myself a beer tomorrow (Easter Friday).
Good post. And I agree with Steve Edney’s early comment. Many mates of mine have expressed similar feelings about the place, including the comparisons with Newtown.
I used to love how at ten o’clock on a quiet Thursday night the place would abruptly fill up with students and semi-goth-types and stuff. The volume and the temperature would rise, and you’d know you were gunna be in late to work the next day.
Liam, my vote’s for the Courtie, including the Swans on the telly and the flag above the bar.
You’re right about Good Friday, James, (bloody God-botherers!) but we are changing the rules so that you can order drinks at restaurants without a meal, and I think we are improving opening hours a bit too.
But I agree - all the crap licensing laws in the world are still bearable as long as pubs remain pokie free. Yay for Perth!
You’re a sad lot.
You can’t even understand why the best of life is being destroyed. One poster even blamed the demise of human communion over a beer after work in the local pub to capitalism. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Blame yourselves, you poor idiots. You support the Marxist state and its political correctness. You support Labor governments and their social agenda to destroy mateship, manship, destroying individual dignity at the same time. You’re drunk with the hypnosis of academic properness and you all fail to understand the decency of the true battler who loves his wife, family and home, his patriarchy and how he likes to have a beer after work. It’s a man thing. So it becomes politically incorrect. So losing your pub serves you right - suffer.
If you want to find a good pub, get off your PC arses and head up the bush. Any direction will do. Drive about five hours, until the scenery starts to open up, the horizon goes flat, clouds sit on the hills with silent menace and then you’ll feel very alone. It’s a nice feeling. Just you and the world. Then stop off somewhere at a real pub in a little county town.
Don’t be surprised when you walk in the door and the locals notice you and stare fiercely. Whatever you do, don’t eyeball the local boys. Don’t challenge them at the pool table unless you’re bloody good or better. They’ll eat you for breakfast if you try to smart them.
Come up the bush. Meet some real men. Meet some real women. Meet some real kids. Meet some real life. Meet people who are proud and decent and go to church on Sunday.
Yep, we’ve still got real pubs up here too. Not Marxist academic bling. And up here, whitey and blackie get along just fine, but they don’t take a shine to PC city faggots.
Yes, it’s too bad you guys lost your pub. But then, what do you expect?
Maximus - I hear what you’re saying and you’re partly right. But Labor governments getting into bed with the development and gambling industries is hardly Marxism.
Maximus, you could be describing my experience when I last visited the Wombat Hotel while doing some fruit picking a few years back, or meeting my brother at one of Orange’s three hundred pubs. Shit, it might even be the scene at Campbelltown’s Courtie last Friday, or the Picton pub I used to drink at on Saturdays!
Unfortunately, my hours of work and the location of my office make trips there each Friday a little unworkable, so I’d like a decent local pub to drink at, as Marxist as that may sound.
If working in the city and wanting a decent local makes me a “PC city faggot” then so be it. I’m still thirsty.
A topic dear to my heart.
Century gone to the renovators.
Hollywood packed full of idiots
County Clare too derelict-trendy
No wonder I had to escape to Brisbane. But although Brisbane has great licencing that enables fantastic venues (Rics, the Rev, etc), it has hardly any nice pubs - they are nearly all gigantic beer barns. Found a couple of nice ones around Spring Hill though.
Change isn’t always bad. Just down the road a pub and a nearby pasta and pizza joint were both refurbed and that improved both places dramatically. We were a little worried when we heard our favourite local restaurant was changing hands but the changes have been excellent.
The gentrification of some areas will change pubs, that is expected. What I object to is the gutting of a local and the associated social network simpy to get pokie licenses. It may be good ol’ fashioned market forces at work but that is not a justification. This is not a simple division of issue down partisan lines.
Maximus, bush pubs are great but I prefer one that I don’t have to drive 5 hours to get to. I don’t drink and drive hence I like good public transport to get me home after a session and so do me mates. And what Damian and phil said.
Great to see so many with fond memories of the Century.
I did like the pubs in Adelaide. While The Beloved went shopping I had a few pints in the Austral in Rundle st. The Dublin and the Jetty Hotel in Glenelg also weren’t too bad. I liked how the bar staff at the Jetty remembered what you were drinking as well.
Maximus minus - country ambiance be damned.
Five hours from Sydney would get you to Moonan Flat where the pub licence disappeared a couple of years ago into the Sydney mist of pokie machine madness. Sure they got a good price for the Vegas room but what’s left for us eyeballing country boys now. Not even a city slickin’ blowin to poke a bit of country hospitality at.
Get firetrucked, Maximus. Some people just want to have a schooner without feeling like they are in one of Souths Juniors twenty bars and with a million lights and sounds going off around them. They may want a sausage sanger that isn’t char grilled, grain fed and doesn’t come with a number stuck to a pole. They may want a game of pool that comes with the risk of a fight. Well, maybe not the last bit.
But they certainly don’t want to hear from political wannabes like you. And if people really want a social drink the way you describe it, the last place they would head for is one those rednecked, tile-walled, piss-floored caves that can be found anywhere from Albury to Tweed Heads. Or in Broken Hill. They aren’t pubs. They are excuses for the mine host to stack as many pokies as possible within their walls and bleed the locals for whatever they can get. Toss the boss or not!
But if you’re happier blaming pollies for the ills that inflict pubs, and have done for decades, then more power to ya, Debnam (and that’s who you REALLY represent). Let’s see what you’ve got when push comes to shove and you get to pull the levers.
Well in Melbourne there’s still plenty of local pubs that have held onto the old while welcoming the new. Places where you still get excellent steak and chips and a VB with wifi on the side – and where the sense of community sees inner city groovers and old locals who have their roots entwined about the legs of their bar stools, passionately talking about how shit the ‘Pies are this season.
This partly because when that old socialist banger Joan Kirner freed up gambling in Vic, the Act in question was still very careful drafted to avoid the Sydney pokie nightmare. And partly because we have the world’s most civilized booze laws. This one’s for you John Nieuwenhuysen. Cheers!
And hey, stick around Circus Maxie. My claws need constant attention.
By the way, has anyone visited Maxie’s site?
If you have, I think you’d agree it’s redolent of sad old men still bitter the bitch left ‘cos she wouldn’t play Stepford Wives any more.
I read through that last link, hoping against hope it was a Swiftian modest proposal until I got to this para.
“We don’t need women anymore. They’re useless, annoying, vicious, smelly, evil creatures tainted by the same violent psychopathic corruption as Adolf Hitler, and hopefully, they’ll find the same ultimate solution for themselves that he found for himself.�
I can’t really see that working as satire or any kinda humour – or on any level except as pathological rage.
But I can quite see now why Maxie you instruct folks that “Whatever you do, don’t eyeball the local boys.�
Don’t know what you are all complaining about. Pub culture has been all been down hill since the early seventies. It was around then that gentrification of the inner city took off and the working class, tiles and more tiles, ambience failed to attract the new residents. So one after another the pub owners went up-market.’ Makes me weep thinking about what was done to the Lord Nelson (Millers Point) and the Old Commodore (McMahon’s Point.) What is happening in Newtown is only a continuation of that trend.
Yo Shaun, wanna haul my previous comment out of moderation already?
“bitch”, “fucking” and “Swiftian” are hardly words I’d imagine would bruise ears around here.
Here’s a question about yer proper Southern Hemisphere pubs –or bars (sorry; ’round this way, a ‘local’ is a trade-union subgroup).
Where I grew up (in working-class white-ethnic parts of NYC), one of the hallmarks of a proper, cozy ‘local’ was the curious custom the men had, of tossing small change into the urinals after they’d had a piss. One of the ways we’d distinguish a place worth drinking in, as opposed to some godforsaken yuppie hell-hole, was to check the men’s room and see if the locals followed that quaint and inexplicable habit: if the urinals were full of pennies and nickels. I’ve seen it in proper old-time working-class Irish bars in other parts of the US, but not outside of those sorts of enclaves.
Was wondering if the same custom ever holds in a proper Oz watering hole with a bit of character?
Nabs,
The mention of ‘VB’ was the problem.
Just imbibed some James Squire Golden Ale. Can Chuck Hahn do anything wrong with beer?
“Was wondering if the same custom ever holds in a proper Oz watering hole with a bit of character?”
Nope. We’re not dumb enough to literally piss away our money.
And I don’t recall ever seeing urinal coinage in some of the saltier boozers I went to in Brooklyn and Hoboken.
Nabakov: “…and I don’t recall ever seeing… in …Hoboken.”
Well, not at Maxwell’s during a Feelies concert, I reckon.
“Well, not at Maxwell’s during a Feelies concert, I reckon.”
You reckon right. Never been to Maxwells. I’ve spent a total of two afternoons drinking in Hoboken taverns while waiting for our lift to take us up into New Jersey’s hinterlands (Beaver Lake and that weird decaying former Playboy resort casino nearby.)
Nice post Shaun. Ahhh the Century. I saw many a sunrise awaken the amber glow of a schooner back in the day. We’d enjoy reality of real Aussieness by admiring real women and quoting Frank Furedi.
The TV show shot at the Courthouse was ‘Love is a Four-Letter Word’, not ‘Love Hurts’. It starred Peter Fenton and was pretty good… The Courthouse is still my pub of choice in the inner west, although they’ve yuppified the courtyard a bit.
I remember when the Clare on Broadway was an old man pub - good times. Then they got some old couches in to give it a ‘Melbourne’ vibe and it was suddenly hip with the UTS/ABC and increasingly trendy/yuppie crowd. The acoustics in there are terrible - when it’s busy (ie almost always) one can’t hear oneself think.
So we started avoiding it in favour of the Australian aka the Abercrombie, down the road (another old fave). Then the same thing happened, with the couches etc. (they both have the same owner). Although both pubs have pokies it’s the trendiness that has ruined them. I was involved in putting on underground music gigs (the sort that normally happen in warehouses) at the Abercrombie last year. Now it’s taken off as a venue to the extent that they’re getting 600 ppl to their weekly indie night Purple Sneakers. One’s only chance of getting a quiet drink there these days if it’s early in the week. And it’s still a shitty pub with dirty/broken toilets… and they closed the kitchen. Apparently shittiness can be lucrative.
Pokies definitely killed the Strawberry Hills, though. That used to be a great venue for indie in the 80s and contemporary jazz in the 90s until the pokies took over…
Shaun, this oughta appear in the paper, mate. Drop me a line and I’ll get it in for ya.
Maximus’ silly rant calls something ‘PC’ which is really ‘LC’ or legally correct. It’s not about banning racist jokes, as I see it. It’s about the notion that nothing should be allowed to go wrong for which someone can’t be legally held to account.
That’s what’s behind the systematic enforcement of drink driving laws (which he left out, but which happens MUCH more in the suburbs than the sticks, where it is well-known that the whole pub drives home tanked) and most of the ‘culture killing’ aspects of licensing legistlation.
What is ‘acceptable risk’? What is our tolerance for things to just go a little bit wrong sometimes? Do these ideas even exist any more?
It’s as if any isolated event can signal the failure of a whole system. So if homeowner ‘x’ has trouble getting to sleep before midnight on a Saturday, next door to a 100-year old pub in the heart of Fremantle/Fitzroy/Newtown, we all wring our hands and say “that could have been me!”. How about saying “at least it’s only ‘x’. The rest of us all had a great time. Perhaps ‘x’ should move houses. Or just fucking stop whining. ‘X’ is the ODD ONE OUT!”
Instead, we have peace and quiet for a few people take precedence over recreation and enjoyment for many. What does that say to you? Doesn’t actually sound very left-wing at all to me, Max. More a cult of individuality and a litigation craze that’s lame-ing up the land for everyone.
If on the other hand he’s just railing against the very existence of people who drink in cities, I agree completely. Everyone should go to Max’s local, regardless of their preferences or geography, because he clearly has the low-down on what it means to be a man/woman/boy/girl. Real men say ‘faggot’ at city folk, real women stay the fuck quiet. Boys and girls watch and learn.
Sheesh, and I thought feminists were good at turning anything into a gender issue.
By the way, I can’t walk down the street in Fitzroy/Northcote/Carlton without tripping over a dozen pubs I’d have killed to live near back in Perth. Go to the Rose Hotel in Fitzroy to see what I mean (cnr Napier and Leicester st). Tiny, sandwiched between terraced houses on a shady back-street, $20 gets you a pint of Cooper’s and a massive steak. Kick-to-kick in the street at half time in the football.
Sorry to rub your Sydney faces in it, but it’s pretty different here. Even Maximus would probably approve; although some faggots will attend, they will probably eat steak, drink beer and talk about football.
And corrupting the young with their Machiavellian anal plans.
“I can’t think of a single issue that would change my voting patterns faster than the possibility of introducing pokies to WA”
Agreed about the pokies possibility and the constant frustration of being unable to pop down to the local for a few quiet ales with mates on Good Friday.
Favorite locals in Perth? I nominate the Davilak in South Freo. A delightful mix of drunks, bogans, bureaucrats and millionaires.
Maximus’ site is a hoot, and I encourage you all to follow Nab’s lead and enjoy all it has to offer, including the pictures of boobies. Shame boobies come on girls, but at least if they’re just pictures they can’t talk back.
I used to live very near the Carlisle too, and I loved the way the back room felt like the rec room at a Caravan Park. The Duke was my local, and I spent many happy nights there drinking Jameson’s in front of the open fire. Weirdly enough, there are a couple of very pleasant pubs in Canberra.
Ah… the inevitable changes of time.
I more than anyone wish pubs could go back to what they used to be. Occassionally someone bones me up about how “this pub has changed” & I point out that my questioner has changed himself in the past 30 years.
Would love to go back to selling liquor only, 10pm closing time, closed all day Sundays, etc etc.
However everything else also would have to go back to the way it was in the 1960’s.
There are many changes, the main ones being severe tightening and enforcement of drink driving laws, and liquor being available at places other than pubs.
Pollytickedoff: Why do madeover pubs all look alike? For the same reason “old cosy” pubs all look alike. (Perhaps the same architect is being used, hehehe…)
Poker machines produce 80% of the profits, from a small percentage of the floor area. Only a “temporary publican” would place the machines where nobody can use them.
Economics has forced pubs to embrace poker machines. Pubs without them have little value (exception to this is rare, and proves the rule)
Don’t be too hard on poker machines kids, without them most pubs wouldn’t have survived.
Hi, I’m back again folks.
Despite not being one who engages in informal chat on blogs or forums - I usually just state my case and PO. I can’t be bothered arguing. Life’s too short for that.
However, due to the kind nature of Mr Phil, who made a valid point with decency and politeness in a responding remark, I feel that I should respond in the same spirit.
As to the rest of you, I laugh out loud - God bless you! Oops. I probably shouldn’t have said that either. But you must understand that I do so much enjoy causing a little ripple here and there of political incorrectness for you folks who’ll take umbrage (and the bait). And I see from some of the comments below that a little ripple I have indeed caused. YO! Make my day. I simply love it.
Anyway, back to Mr Phil and his good remark. Mr Phil said, “But Labor governments getting into bed with the development and gambling industries is hardly Marxism.”
As a statement taken on face value, Mr Phil is completely correct. In his 1848 Manifesto, I don’t believe that Karl Marx embraced gambling or promoted such a thing - no, I’d acquit Comrade Marx on any such charges should they ever be laid, however, I would argue that it is due to the embracing and implementation of Marx’ philosophies, as practised by the ALP in NSW, building social dependence upon the state and constructing a dependent underclass of victims and not having the ability to fund them, that the state must resort to this kind of moral corruption and taxing to back up their failing ideology.
It is well known that academics predominantly support leftist, socialist, liberal values - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/05/AR2006040500970_pf.html - ergo, you reap as you sow. Pro Marxist governments and those who support them - academics - must accept the ultimate moral collapse and sophistication of their societies.
The tragic decline of the USSR is the point in case where social, economic and political collapse was clearly demonstrated. Now, I believe, what’s left of them is predominantly run by the Mafia. Same picture same pattern. Marxist mayhem leads to political corruption and moral chaos.
Marxism one day, social collapse the next. And exactly this is happening in metropolitan NSW right this very minute and is undeniable.
And just for the record, I don’t believe a Liberal state government would do anything better. They’d probably just carry on with the same Marxist BS, but call it something else - like “free enterprise”, except it wouldn’t be free. It’d still be run by the same corruption that’s running the state now.
But how do they get away with it?
Simple - blind compliance to ideology - in this case Marxism and academics. Wake up!
But were there any good pubs Back in the USSR?
On the neighbours and noise thing, other cities should follow Brisbane’s example with the Valley - declare it an entertainment precinct, assert first user rights to the pubs and clubs and force developers to use lots of sound insulation.
Excellent point Kim. The same user first rights should be applied to those who buy/build under airport flight paths, those who buy/build adjacent to nuclear reactors, those who buy/build near to abbatoirs etc etc.
Even under Soviet regime there were great pubs, especially in Prague
It is said that one of the reasons the Velvet revolution took place in 1989 was due to the price increase of beer. It doubled from 1984 to 1989 …
Looking for the best clubby and pubby atmosphere in Sydney: Consider invading the Icebergs
all kinds of eccentric and less so character break ice there
Shannon, thanks for that. I knew it was Love..something!
I agree that “Excellent point Kim. The same user first rights should be applied to those who buy/build under airport flight paths, those who buy/build adjacent to nuclear reactors, those who buy/build near to abbatoirs etc etc.”
I would even go further and apply it to PROPOSED airports. One of the reason’s Baggery’s creek will never happen is the number of homes that havce been built in the area since it was first uggested as a site for a new airport. This would be OK except that most of them were built there BECAUSE it was going to be an airport and because of the assocaiated jobs and services that an airport would bring to the area!