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Last glass saloons

News Clippings Peter Cameron, The Gold Coast Bulletin, October 29 2009

SCHOOLIES may be the grog violence tipping point as the police campaign to close bars earlier widens.

While the Surfers Paradise Licensed Venues Association reacted cautiously to the cops’ 2am lockup proposal, you can bet Queensland publicans will be up in arms, especially as public calls swell to increase the drinking age in Queensland from 18 to 21 - at least for takeaway sales.

Schoolies’ record for arrests and liquor offences grows each year.

Listen to some experienced police and too often the problems originate with male hangers-on whose college days were over a year or three previously.

But this year Schoolies will be held almost on the eve of new state bans on serving alcohol in glasses at up to 74 licensed venues. And less than four months before the state Parliamentary inquiry into alcohol violence is finalised by the bi-partisan Law, Safety and Justice Committee.

Fair to say not all Gold Coast nightclub traders are anxiously looking forward to the Mark 2009 version of Schoolies Festival.

One Surfers landmark will close for the first five days of the three-week, national under-age drinking festival - `for kitchen repairs’ the proprietor diplomatically told The Gold Coast Bulletin.

Others will have to intensify saloon security.

It will be business as usual at the three venues operated by nightclub big shot Jamie Pickering, a veteran of the Surfers nightlife industry; but he realises the potential for schoolies to cause further damage to Surfers’ reputation as a party venue.

``The thing is we don’t want 17-year-olds to close Surfers down. They cannot come to clubs legally, anyway,’’ said Mr Pickering.

The Queensland Police Union faces an uphill battle to score mandatory prison sentences for anyone causing serious assault on emergency workers in Queensland - whether they are drunk or not.

Mandatory sentences, recently introduced by the Liberal government in Western Australia, usually are unacceptable to Labor governments. But the police have acquired powerful allies in their quest to nip grog violence in the bud one way or the other.

Brisbane Lord Mayor Campbell Newman was joined by the medical chairman of the Australasian Royal College of Surgeons’ trauma committee in the demand to reduce trading hours.

Cr Newman can be written off by the Bligh Government as just another Liberal opponent: bit different with doctors who are lining up to detail problems from alcohol violence and youthful over-consumption, particularly when the scenario can involve drugs such as amphetamines.

The coppers want nightclubs shut at 2am and pubs at midnight. QPU president Ian Leavers nominated entertainment districts such as Surfers Paradise and Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley as `very violent and hazardous places’.

More than 40 per cent of police work comes down to solving alcohol-related incidents. Usually between 9pm and 3am.

The 3am-5am closing times have been a hot political potato since their inception. Recent moves to extend hotel closing times to 3am at some venues, including the Gold Coast, met spirited community, police and political resistance.

Surfers traders believe their safety record is superior to Brisbane’s. Fair enough - there was a death plus a severe bashing recorded at Fortitude Valley in recent weeks.

``There is plenty of evidence that selling liquor until sunrise is taking a high toll on our youth,’’ said Mr Leavers. ``Too many people have been severely bashed, injured, maimed and disfigured all in the mistaken belief that swilling alcohol until dawn somehow makes us internationally superior. They are ending up in watchhouses, courts, ambulances and our hospital at an alarming rate.’‘

The police view is that often these are otherwise sensible young men and women stupid on the grog.

``I know nightclub owners and publicans will not be happy with our submission. However it’s time to put the interests of the wider community before the licensees’ desire to fill their tills for the maximum number of hours,’’ said Mr Leavers.

The Ambulance Union also backs the police campaign. Not surprising when their paramedics are called in to clean up one drunken brawl after another.

``(They’re) Run off their feet,’’ according to Mr Leavers.

While there is speculation about introduction of a national 2am closing time for nightclubs, the Queensland Government will bide its time until it receives the Law, Safety and Justice Committee report.

Damning alcohol statistics seldom are far from the federal news lists with Senator Steve Fielding reporting this week that more than 3000 Australians have died each year for a decade with alcohol-related conditions. The Herald-Sun in Melbourne noted yesterday that alcohol-related hospital attendances are rising by 30 per cent.

The Bligh Government crack-down on assaults with liquor glasses is backed by statistics of up to 55 incidents at 41 Queensland premises over 12 months.

Even sales of champagne and wine by the bottle look set to be swept up in the glass ban at up to 74 `high-risk’ Queensland venues from December 1. This includes eight prominent Gold Coast venues.

In other moves, a linked ID scanner network across Queensland’s major entertainment precincts such as Surfers Paradise and the Valley will be investigated. The system speeds up the automatic exclusion of troublemakers.

All the above would tend to suggest that the year 2007’s 17-point plan from former premier Peter Beattie to reduce grog violence went flat.

On average 16,000 Australians are locked up for drunkenness every year.

We cannot blame it all on schoolies or Peter Beattie. For instance, bars at Flemington racecourse on Melbourne Cup day will be licensed to open at 6am.