While the nation wonders how it is going to survive another four weeks of election campaigning, Sydneysiders are focusing on more important issues such as Clover Moore’s Small Bar bill. As previously discussed on LP, the aim of the bill is to overturn NSW’s archaic licensing regulations.
There is some good news. Firstly the coalition, with some provisions, will support the bill. Secondly Alison Megarrity, the Labor member for Menai, has told caucus that they risk being seen as stooges of the AHA if they oppose or make concession in regards to the Small Bars bill. Thirdly the SMH ran an op-ed today by the AHA president John Thorpe that confirms he is an out of touch dinosaur who thinks Bob Askin is still premier.
Thorpe’s op-ed does nothing to allay suspicions that he has any idea of what Sydneysiders really want. For example Thorpe asks
So why is it that we cannot have a civilised public debate on the need for small bars without emotive outbursts
Indeed. Maybe Thorpe could help an example and stop making nonsensical statements like “We don’t want to sit in a hole and drink chardonnay and read a book.”
Continuing on we have a nice little non sequitur
Hotels still remain the centre of many people’s lives, providing valuable meeting places to socialise, eat and drink. We are the community’s lounge room, particularly in the bush.
Thorpe is indeed correct regarding the function of a pub in small towns. But we are talking about Sydney and other centres with larger, diverse populations that want a more than an AHA approved pub culture.
The proposal that “small bars” can allow up to 120 patrons should set the alarm bells ringing in every police station in the state. Experience suggests new outlets would require serious security applications such as CCTV and security staff.
John, we are talking about small intimate bars. Not the large beer barns. The assumption here is that large gatherings of people imbibing leads to trouble. Thorpe has this weird notion that all the same customers that flock to the beer barns will also flock to a cozy inner-city bar.
The hotel industry has identified an emerging trend in leisure drinking known as “hubbing” where people visit more than two or three venues during an evening.
Wow, the hotel industry has just discovered “hubbing”? I’ve known about it for 20 years. I wonder if the AHA will pay me to research and identify an emerging trend I term “the pub crawl”?
Given the regulatory environment, it is difficult to see how the new establishments could be economically viable, particularly if hotels and small bars have to work on a level playing field.
Management and staff must be trained in the responsible service of alcohol, regardless of the type of venue.
Obtaining an RSA is not exactly an onerous task. I had one myself till last year. Anyway, those with bar experience will very likely have their RSA certification up to date. Thorpe presents running a bar as some mysterious, arcane art that only those initiated into the sacred rites of the AHA can ever understand.
To be fair, Thorpe does have a valid concern in ensuring that adequate toilet facilities will be included in any new licensed establishments. I’m not sure if this would be covered with the new legislation.
That aside, the overall problem with Thorpe’s arguments against the Small Bars bill is that he largely frames his objections in terms of the problems of current pub culture. One of the aims of The Small Bars bill is to provide an alternative place of imbibing that avoids some of the issues associated with large venues.
The passing of the Small Bars bill would not represent the passing of pubs. They would still will exist and do a good trade. Passing the legislation may however represent the passing of the outmoded ideas of the AHA.
excellent post, and good point. Small bars would allow for a different relationship to the consumption of alcohol. Instead of a big night out to anarea like Oxford Street or King Street (Newtown) punters can hang out with friends in their local non-pub. Anything that can help shift the destructive culture of alcohol consumptionin in Australia is good thing.
“…starting to lose the battle” mayhap?
Good news, anyway. There may be hope for Sydderney after all!
Ooops. Thanks FDB.
“Thorpe presents running a bar as some mysterious, arcane art that only those initiated into the sacred rites… can ever understand.”
Well if it’s not a mysterious arcane art, it certainly should be. Or maybe just not enough people go about it with the artfulness and mystery it deserves.
Zany alcohol regulations aren’t always all bad; sometimes the very presence of nutty rules inspires the world to new developments. Why, only just the other evening I read that tapas (to be fair, I read it on the back of a tapas-bar menu, not in the Library of Congress) was invented as a response to laws in early medieval Spain, promulgated by Alfonso X, which stipulated that wine could only be served with small bites of food on the side. And now we have… tapas!
Which only goes to show. Smoking… can ruin yer health.
Well, you’re getting closer, but still no strawberry scratch ‘n’ sniff I’m afraid.
I heard the same thing in Spain, although the intent of the law was supposedly to make alcohol service contingent on food per se, and tapas was a loophole solution for folks who really only wanted a drink. They were served in a little plate on top of a beer or wine, hence ‘tapas’ = lids.
Thorpe should have learned from George Pell’s intervention on the stem cell debate: going in hard won’t work.
If the small bar/non-pub doesn’t work, they’ll go out of business. Simple, really. Mind you, these bars could be vulnerable: half a dozen Pommy backpackers full of Stella and/or chunder could wreck the ambience of a small bar pretty quickly, whereas beer barns take unpleasantness in their stride.
In a different context, Shaun, this is known as a “pub crawl”. I should hope that all imbibing at pubs is “leisure drinking”.
Andrew E “I should hope that all imbibing at pubs is ‘leisure drinking’”
…although being paid to do “work drinking” definitely has a certain appeal!
Just to clarify, Shaun, the title of the post is still wrong.
What’s the norm in cities re liquor licensing? Small, secluded bars are one of my favourite things about living in Melbourne, but having not spent much time in the other capitals I don’t know if this is the exception or the rule?
“No one goes there. It’s too crowded.” Yogi Berra.
KT – definitely the exception.
Ok, I think I got it right.
Andew, I can see a difference in “hubbing” and “pub crawling.” From my experience back in the day, people would after visit and wander between venues depending on which place was jumping.
To me, a pub crawl is a concerted effort to drink at a number of different pubs in an area.
Definitely the exception for Perth. Many have wanted to do it but no success yet.
TWOP, I understand that local councils seem to be knocking back applications for small bars in Perth. Is that the case?
“..we are the commmunity’s lounge room particularly in the bush” Thorpe may be on the money in some really ‘bush’ places Shawn but I’d suggest for the large part of non-metropolitan NSW he’s way out. The blood houses that pass for community lounge rooms had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the non-smoking era and asking for a red or white means whatever comes out of the chateau cardboard, both of which can be fridge-bound.
excellent news, shaun, you get the feeling the ‘elites’ in both parties are dead sick themselves of sydney’s mono-pub culture.
unlike a lot of punters, they’re well travelled and probably spend more down-time outside the reach of the AHA’s grip on sydney’s drinking culture.
imo, the nsw labor govt. are the next target after getting rid of howard. they are seriously fcuked and the only way nsw isn’t looking at 10 years of liberal govt, is for a complete renewal of nsw labor. getting rid of howard might prove an easier job, though!
hopefully, another outcome will be the opening up of different sorts of bar/music/cafes etc – outside the city centre and inner city. it must be a real shit living in the west for eg. and having to travel miles back and forth to get a different kulture hit.
on that question – did the whole bar/cafe/music scene in vic travel beyond the inner melb. metro areas? (i’ve been meaning to get south of the border again, haven’t been back since 2000.)
Agreed Pablo. Here on the Central Coast a few wine bars would make a big difference. And I know the odd North Coast town where a few small bars would go down a treat.
I agree but who do we replace them with jo? Surely not the Libs?
absolutely not shaun, this seems to be most people’s default position, but as i posted above – i’d like to see a renewal of nsw labor – pie in the sky maybe!! – but surely, they must know themselves that they are totally out of new ideas, and are going down big time & for a lengthy period out of office, unless there is an across-the-board renewal of personnel.
it would be v. good to see some fresh policies and talent moving into the party, in readiness for the 2011 election.
if rudd is elected (cross fingers), there might be some real movement in terms of health/education/transport etc. and it seems like a opportune time for progressive types to focus on state issues again, if the Feds are doing a half decent job – again – we wont know until (cross fingers– i’m becoming OCD!!) rudd is elected.
WOP, I understand that local councils seem to be knocking back applications for small bars in Perth. Is that the case?
Local councils will knock back anything if they get a single complaint from a resident.
But the real problem in Perth previously was the fact that the “Public Needs Test” effectively placed a hard cap on the number of bars in each area, a cap that reached sometime in the late 1970s.
The LDP supports full competition in the liquor and hospitality industry.
The LDP is now moving up my preferences list past the Free Beer Party. I can just tell they’re not serious. Unlike youse blokes.
We support Free beer so long as it is provided by private philanthropists and not appropriated through taxation
It’s true that amongst people I speak to there is a growing perception of the NSW Labour Party being under the spell of one their larger contributors, the AHA. It puts me in mind of the old tag for state labour governments of the past: “NSW Inc”.
I’ve just been travelling in Japan where small interesting bars abound – in Tokyo’s Golden Gai district the bars are famously small, accomodating only a few people. They’re great fun, and precisely the sort of warm, small-scale, granular experience that delights visitors and locals alike. In Kyoto these small varied bars are riddled throughout areas like Pontocho Rd.
What would Sydney be like with this sort of experience on offer down small lanes in the CBD, or in inner-city suburbs such as Newtown, Glebe, Darlinghurst, or urban centres such as Rockdale, Campsie or Leichhardt. It’d be pretty good.
Yobbo – are non-pub-affiliated bottle shops still prevented from opening on Sundays over there?
Are you referring to WA Inc? That was an actual corporate entity, not a mere tag. Also, Labor is spelt thusly.
Heh – thanks FDB for the correction.
Of course WA Inc was a true scandal, and the tag is perhaps a overreach on my part.
However the cosy collusion between business and government effected through the donations of an industry lobby group is clearly not in the interest of the electorate.
What’s the scale of donation?
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=5899
US law professor Lawrence Lessig has gone so far as to label this kind of arrangement a corrupting influence on policy-making.
http://wiki.lessig.org/index.php/Corruption
This echoes some of the findings in the WA Inc Royal Commission:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WA_Inc
Hopefully one day we’ll all be chuckling about this over a cold beer in a small bar in a quiet back lane on a sunny afternoon.
Labor/labour, schmazor/schmazour – Adrian’s right – too much influence by the big end of town makes for a very smelly government. There can be no justification for refusing to allow small bars to operate in a civilised society. It’s been happening for millennia and has been the stuff of political machinations for just about as long.
Adrian, you mentioned Rockdale as a possibility. As a St. George resident, the idea is very appealing indeed. It would be great to have a nice quiet place to have a drink and a chat with some of my local friends without having to drag everybody into the inner west for a big night out, or trying to make the best of one of the local pubs which never feel particularly welcoming. I’ve been contemplating the possibilities since the changes were first mentioned. I wonder if (and hope that) somewhere like Rockdale or Kogarah could sustain something of that nature. Is there anybody else in comparable parts of Sydney that has thoughts on the matter?
If you want a liquor licence of any sort in Queensland, be prepared to jump through some pretty amazing hoops. The nanny-statism is exemplified if you want to sell any alcohol at all in localities with low socioeconomic indicators by these guidelines (pdf file).
The following scores apply if these indicia exceed the state average by 5 or more percentage points:
Persons aged 15 or more with no qualifications – 2
Aborginal or Torres Strait Islander people – 4
Recent migrants from non-English speaking countries – 0.5
Occupied private dwellings with 2 or more families – 0.5
Households renting – 0.5
One parent families with dependent children – 2
Males (in labour force) unemployed – 3
Females (in labour force) unemployed – 3
Employed males classified as labourers and related workers – 1
Employed females classified as labourers and related workers – 1
A score of 8 classifies your application as high risk. A licence will not be granted unless the applicant establishes “compelling evidence of mitigation measures which demonstrably address these high risk factors”, whatever that means and however that might be achieved.
Bismarck, that is still better than the WA policy, which effectively states “The only way to get a liquor license is to purchase one from an existing business and transfer the ownership”. Like a Taxi Plate.
FDP: That restriction was lifted at the end of last year. Metropolitan liquor stores are now permitted to open on Sundays.
Small bars, reads sort of like workchoices for pubs.
The proposal is that anyone can open up a small bar, & provide a service & ambience which is not provided by the protected & mollycoddled closed shop?
Just so long as none of the commenters arguing in favour of this do not then (or have not in the past) hypocritcally banged on about workchoices being bad.
That is a pretty impressive bit of argument there SATP. Breathtaking audacity.
“All you people wanting more oranges better stop complaining about all the apples”.
Brilliant!
Perhaps you are right FDB, the AHA is more like a “no ticket, no start” affair, anf the “small bars” are more like a non-unionised workforce.
I don’t know about the WorkChoices comparison SATP, but certainly the Small Bars bill will advantage developers with large amounts of capital over small operators. It’d be less a loss for the AHA than a massive victory for Mirvac and Westfield. Undercapitalised operators in a market like Sydney are likely to lose out not to larger bars but to retailers with fewer costs: convenience stores, mobile phone shops and fast food outlets.
I would be somewhat sceptical about the benefits for the “hubber”, unless you like the ambience of Burwood shopping centre at kicking out time.
Hurrah for civilisation! All you need is deregulation, a footpath with a handrail, and Heineken at $6 a bottle.
You only pay $6 a bottle for Heineken in a bottle in bars over east!? FMD… More like $8 in the West.