24 August 2010

Greens scupper Simon's plans to kill small pubs

| johnboy
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Simon Corbell is bleating that his efforts to force all of Canberra’s drinkers into mega bars (many of them owned by the Labor Party) have been scuppered by Green demands that late night transport be included in the package:

“A last minute call by the Greens, to the Government in the last 24 hours, for a financial commitment to establish late night transport arrangements, will significantly delay the implementation and roll out of the new changes.

“This un-necessary delay means that the reforms will not be in place before the beginning of summer 2010 despite a government commitment, at the request of members of the Legislative Assembly, to have the liquor reforms in place before December 1 this year.

“This last minute ultimatum from the Greens will seriously jeopardise the implementation of the Bill and the essential community education to take place before the busy festive season.”

Simon’s hoping to have another go later in the week.

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Well, something’s wrong. The submissions regarding the proposed Regs aren’t on the website yet (at time of posting)… surely it shouldn’t take long to post the submissions on a website…?

http://www.justice.act.gov.au/review/view/7/title/review-of-the-liquor-act

I note the proposed Regs didn’t include any actual prices for the licensing.

(PS – Liquor Act Review submissions are here: http://www.justice.act.gov.au/review/view/4/title/review-of-the-liquor-act)

…some nights for some reason everyone would be on edge and there’d be 3 or 4…

would that be the nights where there is a full moon?

Just another attempt by the lametards in the ALP to make life more boring. They rarely look at the evidence, which by my reckoning would likely favour heavily cracking down on a number of the larger meat markets in Civic, and leaving smaller outfits alone. Can anyone ever remember a fight at the Wig and Pen or the Front? I haven’t, and I’ve (mis)spent much of my life in the former establishment.

I sometimes wonder if there’s some muppet in the local council that has a character meter. I imagine it’d look a bit like a Geiger counter. They’d just wonder around and it’d go berserk whenever it went past somewhere where people looked to be enjoying themselves in a mellow fashion, and vaguely resembled the sort of set up one might find in any other normal Australian city. I reckon they did this with Garema Place before it was razed and sanitised. The character meter is prolly the reason the Canberra Centre extension was allowed (despite contravening 17 planning regulations and needing to be overruled by Corbell), and I’ve no doubt it went absolutely ballistic when it went near Brodburger, prompting a sadly predictable response from the clowns at the NCA. It’s little wonder that most of my mates from high school or uni have fled to Melbourne.

verbalkint said :

To suggest that this plan, which will doubtless result in less violence is done in order to get people into the Labor Clubs is really pretty juvenile, to be frank.

How exactly is this plan going to lead to less violence? Surely spreading people out over a number of bars instead of cramming them all into one is a better system?

One would think that smaller establishments, such as the Wig and Pen, would see less violence on the average Friday night than a place like Mooseheads. Even if we were going to go by ‘violent incidents as a percentage of patrons’ I can’t see a smaller boutique bar coming anywhere near a large scale joint.

I would suspect that smaller places and larger places attract a slightly different clientele, and that those going to smaller places would be less likely to be in the knuckle-draggers brigade.

Pommy bastard said :

What small pubs?

Wig and Pen, Phoenix, that sort of thing innit? The Basement was one of the venues complaining publically about the proposed legislation changes.

That should read – I fail to see why the government can’t</b scale the laws…

Tetranitrate said :

Pretty much all the violence in civic occurs in or outside the large establishments.

I fail to see why the government can scale the laws so that the bigger a venue is, the stricter the rules have to be, so that small venues don’t get squeezed. It is all to easy to believe JB’s tinfoil hat theory. Not that anyone in politics is corrupt… just open to influence…

Tetranitrate3:12 pm 24 Aug 10

oh and I do mean average. Sometimes it was none, some nights for some reason everyone would be on edge and there’d be 3 or 4.

Tetranitrate3:12 pm 24 Aug 10

verbalkint said :

To suggest that this plan, which will doubtless result in less violence

It’s doubtless?
Pretty much all the violence in civic occurs in or outside the large establishments.
Most of it isn’t even publicized – from working as glassie a couple of years ago at one of the larger establishments, I feel pretty confident in saying that I saw an average of about two fights a night, and those were the ones I saw, which would probably have been less than
half.

Many does not imply a majority.

Four mine four constitutes many, and when you add in the CFMEU’s poker club empires the number climbs higher.

You might choose to believe it is complete coincidence that the final formula is heavy on regulation favouring larger venues.

It might even be reasonable to think it’s just the result of better access and ability to lobby on behalf of larger venues in general.

But if Labor wants to operate pokie palaces it’s going to have to live with the stink when their policies coincidentally serve the interests of their assets.

Pommy bastard3:07 pm 24 Aug 10

What small pubs?

What is wrong with a mix? Who wants to always go to a loud sweaty overpriced meat market when a relaxing ale in a small venue is what you are after?

Why does the argument always come up about who is responsible for drunks safety and late night transport? If you go out for a drink and aren’t able to manage your affairs THEN DON’T GO OUT AND DRINK.

“Many of them owned by the Labor Party” is a bit of the stretch. There is one chain of four clubs that donate to the ALP, that would hardly qualify as ‘many’.

To suggest that this plan, which will doubtless result in less violence is done in order to get people into the Labor Clubs is really pretty juvenile, to be frank.

Since congregations of drunk people are often linked to the sort of violence and antisocial behaviour that governments usually rally against, wouldn’t it make more sense to limit the size of venues to something quite small, and disperse them further apart?

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