Would NSW’s liquor licencing laws be a “no ticket no start” monopoly by the AHA, and open season on small bars be a series of individually negotiated AWA’s?

I notice that John Howard claims it is the “best big city in the world�.

They do a great long Horlicks at the Kirribilli Bowls Club.

I spent a lonely sad 9 months there in 1994 desperately seeking a decent watering hole. There were exactly two. In the whole place.

And you say it’s due to the licencing laws. So repeal the laws! How hard is it? I notice that John Howard claims it is the “best big city in the world”. QED.

Get one of the best nerds to run a few numbers, figure out some baseline cost stats, and I’ll see youse all on Rush Street in no time. And maybe I can pull a few strings, so the cops’ll leave us alone. No promises, though, we’ll see.

Just don’t let it go too long, cuz the wind off the Lake gets awful fucking cold in winter. You won’t believe how clean the shoreline is, though. Plus: free Mies van der Rohe tours, for any people who give a shit what those words mean!

How can you refuse?

Do you think the law should be used to prevent businesses from opening up to service demand?

Or that there is no demand, because everyone in Sydney is a true blue Aussie like you who wouldn’t be caught dead drinking in anything smaller than a small suburb?

Or is it that you won’t engage with the actual subject matter because the AHA are clearly just rent-seeking and you can’t support them without your head exploding?

I love a good pub.

Bring back the “Private Bar”, so that we don’t have to drink with the *ugh* Australian PEOPLE *ugh*

John Greenfield, who’s captured the luvvie zeitgeist with this cracker:

As anybody who has returned from London will attest, the number of pubs in Sydney that are passable is minimal

My dear, one adores drinking with Luvvies. In fact, I advise that at least three-quarters of one’s drinking party be luvvies. That is what luvvies are for, sweetie.

If you’re in Fitzroy, go to Black Pearl. Cocktail madness.

AND Moa-Tse-Tung-themed-lychee-martini-serving-only-room-to-seat-20-skinny-models-type bars.

I’ve been there. With Lefty E. Nice bar!

Ooh, don’t even get me started on that shite DD.

Charming, you mean like the drinking habits of a Collingwood crowd or charming like 6pm of a Melbourne Cup day? Or, did you mean charming like the last train home from the city to Reservoir?
See, more than one can play at *that* game of snobbery.

Which game would that be DD?

Why should you assume that the view would be more fascinating from one side of the windoes than the other?

Reeks of snobbery to me.

Myself, I often hold my nose and pay short anthropologically-driven visits to Melbourne’s charming estaminets.

Provide us with one coherent argument for keeping liquor licenses cripplingly expensive and needlessly restrictive.

Difficult, as I’ve never endorsed such a thing. In fact, I’d like to see lots of parts of booze law liberalised, especially the bizarre zoning regulations lots of Australian councils have, that let yuppies’ noise complaints shut down perfectly civilised bars, pubs, and clubs well before even SBS is allowed to show foreign nudity on TV.

why demean others’ desires?

Oh, I think I’m one of the least offenders here, when it comes to demeaning others’ modes of alcohol consumption.

Why shouldn’t the charming Melbourne estaminet share a party wall with the Sydney swillatorium?

Charming, you mean like the drinking habits of a Collingwood crowd or charming like 6pm of a Melbourne Cup day? Or, did you mean charming like the last train home from the city to Reservoir?
See, more than one can play at *that* game of snobbery.

The thrust of what you’re saying seems to be that it’s snobbery to want some other form of drinking culture than the current Sydney one.

The thrust of what I’m saying is that it’s perverse and counter-productive to try to use legislation to normalise one mode of alcohol consumption, especially a middle-class one. By all means make liquor licences cheaper, I’m entirely supportive of such a move. If it’s done to try to reduce alcohol consumption or encourage ‘responsible’ imaginary-bourgeois drinking habits, I’m telling you you’ll be disappointed.

“… keeping liquor licenses cripplingly expensive and needlessly restrictive“

Provide us with one coherent argument for keeping liquor licenses. Preferably one which doesn’t stem from paranoia about people judging heavy drinking sports bars and actually engages with what’s at issue.

I, for example, love BOTH big-screen-$12-jugs-$1-pool-table-type pubs AND Moa-Tse-Tung-themed-lychee-martini-serving-only-room-to-seat-20-skinny-models-type bars. Thankfully I’m in Melbourne, where I’m free to worship you in the manner of my choosing, but really your attitude is disappointing.

I’ll tell you what civilisation is. Civilised drinking cultures don’t get all judgmental when adults consume alcohol directly, honestly, and effectively, for the purpose of enjoyably getting drunk.

Absolutely DD!

Why shouldn’t the charming Melbourne estaminet share a party wall with the Sydney swillatorium?

Clients of each could choose to watch clients of the other enjoying booze in their own way, through plate glass windows, should they wish.

Knowledge promotes understanding.

BTW, who knew that an estaminet was originally a pole for tethering a cow?

What’s wrong with drinking without babies or education? The childless and ignorant have a right to get their drunk on too. They might even be noisy and rude.

So?

I just don’t see what your point is. You might like noisy pubs. That’s nice. There’s nothing wrong with people who don’t. And other drinking preferences should be catered for. Are you arguing against that? Or just expressing your own cultural preferences? If the former, you don’t have a coherent position. If the latter, fine, but why demean others’ desires?

The thrust of what you’re saying seems to be that it’s snobbery to want some other form of drinking culture than the current Sydney one.

I’ve got no problem if people want to drink in beer gardens, or swill grog on the cheap, or play the pokies, or whatever. But those shouldn’t be the only options for drinkers.