The latter part of the post discusses in more detail specific binge drinking problems in the entertainment precinct of Sydney, Australia. Alcohol-related violence in this area have led to the implementation of controversial laws meant to hinder the violence and visitors' excessive drinking habits. These laws have had both positive and negative effects. Such concentrated incidents and laws, to my knowledge, do not have incomparable counterparts in the U.S. I also recount my own Saturday night out in Sydney and what my experience entailed.
Our Histories of Alcohol Consumption
Alcohol has had a very important place in Australia's history and culture from its very beginnings as a colony of convicts. The convicts emigrated from Britain and Ireland, countries where it was a cultural norm to drink heavily. At that time alcohol also had a practical purpose, it was a form of nutrition since people had a limited diet and it was an alternative to water since pollution was a problem. Once the convicts arrived in Australia, life was very tough living in a harsh environment, so alcohol was a method that they used to escape their difficult daily lives. For example, a drinking practice that came about was called "work and bust", when men would engage in an extended drunken binge after a period of hard work in the bush. Rum is also also often considered to be Australia's first currency. At one time during the colony's early beginnings, convicts would use spirits to barter with and they were also partly paid in rum by the government.
However, the U.S. was not first settled by individuals who extremely favored alcohol. A group of English Puritans known as "the Pilgrims" landed in Massachusetts in 1620 and established the Plymouth Colony. The Puritans held strict and conservative religious beliefs, but they were not opposed to drinking alcohol in moderation. They enjoyed drinking but they denounced drinking to excess. The Puritans actually carried more beer than water on their ship, the Mayflower, when they set off for the New World. But at that time, water and milk were easily contaminated and spoiled, while coffee and tea were expensive. So the Pilgrims often drank cider and beer, but less so hard alcohol like whiskey, rum, gin. But Australia was on the other hand, founded by a group of people who loved drinking in excess and loved drinking spirits.
Though America's first settlers drank in moderation, American history has not without time periods of excessive drinking. The Temperance Movement and resulting Prohibition came about in part to attack excessive drinking. An average American in 1830 drank about 7 gallons of pure alcohol a year, which is three times what Americans drink today (in 1790 the per capita consumption of pure alcohol was was just below 6 gallons per year). Men's excessive drinking habits were especially damaging to women and families since this was a time when women had nearly no rights and were completing dependent on their husbands. The roots of the Temperance Movement came from Protestant churches that encouraged moderation, as well as abolitionists who viewed alcohol as an evil equal to slavery. Ultimately the Temperance Movement was successful in achieving the outright prohibition of alcohol in 1920 when the the 18th amendment to the Constitution was passed.
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| Women involved in the Temperance Movement Source: ediblegeography.com |
State and the federal governments also suffered because they overwhelming relied on alcohol's tax revenue. The American government lost further money because it cost a hefty $300 million to enforce Prohibition. And of course, Prohibition led to the illegal production and market in alcohol. One could have a drink at a "speakeasy", which was an establishment that sold alcohol illegally during Prohibition. The name is self-explanatory, meaning that one should speak quietly about the place when inside it or in public so to conceal it from police or other people. Many average Americans becoming "criminals" due to their involvement in the illegal alcohol market, causing overwhelmed court systems and jails during Prohibition.
Overall Prohibition failed in its main goal to stop excessive drinking and improve America's morality. Outlawing alcohol actually made alcohol abuse worse. The statistics from that time period are known to be not the most reliable, but it is clear that in many areas of the U.S. people were drinking more than pre-Prohibition.
What I think is the most interesting result of Prohibition is the economic consequences. I think the effects shows how important alcohol has always been to the American economy and how closely tied it is to the functioning of government. The alcohol industry has only grown since Prohibition and now is a massively wealthy industry. Later in this post I will discuss new laws imposed in the Australian state of New South Wales to hinder excessive drinking, which are having effects that I think are reminiscent of the effects Prohibition had in the U.S.
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| Source: today.com |
Australia has never had a "Prohibition", potentially showing that the roots of alcohol consumption are more strongly embedded in Australian culture. But the Temperance Movement did make some strides in Australia. Similarly to how American Prohibition brought about higher levels of drinking, legal changes in Australia were implemented to hinder excessive drinking, but actually contributed to heavy drinking.
An example of this type of law was known informally as the "six o'clock swill". This slang term was used by both Australians and New Zealanders to represent laws imposed during World War I that forced hotel and pub bars to close at 6 PM. This forced closing time was implemented as a way to improve public morality and as an austerity measure during the War. As a result, a culture of heavy drinking developed among men in the hour between the end of the work day at 5 PM and when the bars closed at 6 PM. The "six o'clock swill" caused men to drive home from the bar very drunk and the most alcohol-related assaults on family members happened in the few hours after 6 PM closing. Previously bars were open until about 11 PM. the Temperance Movement hoped that this law would help move the country towards total prohibition of alcohol, like in the U.S., but it never was achieved.
A Sydney resident, Kevin McNamee, was a little boy when the six o'clock swill was around, and remembers what is was like from going into pubs with his dad. McNamee said men would buy 5 or 6 pots of beer and drink all of them during that hour. There was violence at the bars among men, but they were settled among the men themselves. There was no security at bars in those days like there is now. Overall the attitude held by men involved in the six o'clock swill could be described as: "Getting drunk was a sprint, not a marathon".
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| Customers wait to be served before the 6 PM closing time at a Melbourne hotel bar. Source: Herald Sun, Melbourne |
Alcohol Consumption Today
However, in recent decades, in both the U.S. and Australia, large alcohol manufacturers have grown their range of products, increased the amount they produce, as well as improved and increased their advertising. In both countries, alcohol companies associate themselves with sports for advertisement purposes. This has all helped contribute to a resurgence of a binge drinking culture.
In 2010 the U.S. alcohol industry contributed $400 billion to economy, $90 billion in wages and over 3.9 million jobs in the U.S. In 2013, the market share of the industry is made up of beer at 48.3%, wine at 17%, and spirits at 34.7%. On the other hand, in Australia in 2009-2010, alcohol consumption accounted for $9.7 billion. In 2009-10, alcohol contributed $1.2 billion in wages and $3.8 billion in tax revenues (1.3% of total). The alcohol industry also employs 20,629 people. The market is dominated by beer at 42%, wine at 37%, and spirits at 20%. Given the size of each country, the alcohol industry is quite large comparably. It is also evident that wine is more favorable in Australia than the U.S. This may be due to the fact that the Australia has a strong wine industry and many areas of the country are known for their wine making regions. In the U.S., Australian wine is easily accessible and some of the brands are among the cheapest priced wines one can find.
Our Binge Drinking Cultures
While the history of drinking in each nation has not been exactly similar leading up to the present, each nation now faces the problem of "binge drinking." Firstly, what is binge drinking? Interestingly, definitions of it in the two countries differ slightly, and the definition has changed over time.
According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) in the U.S., binge drinking is defined as drinking so to bring one's blood alcohol concentration (BAC) to 0.08 (This is also the legal limit to which one can drive in the U.S.). The NIAA also states that in a period of about 2 hours, men usually acheive a BAC of 0.08 after 5 drinks and after 4 drinks for women .
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), the standard for binge drinking is more than 7 drinks in a night for men, while 5 drinks for women. But most recently, the National Health and Medical Research Council's (NHMRC) Australian Alcohol Guidelines, have given what is commonly known as binge drinking the term, "a single occasion of drinking", and it states: "For healthy men and women, drinking no more than four standard drinks on a single occasion reduces the risk of alcohol-related injury arising from that occasion". I cannot help but think that this new standard has been updated to a lower amount of drinks due to the frequency of alcohol-related injuries and violence in the country, as I will discuss later in this blog post. Also interestingly, Australia's BAC limit is almost half of that of the U.S., standing at 0.5, which may be another indicator of Australia's larger struggle with alcohol-related problems.
According to the NIAAA, 24.6% of adults (18+) in 2012 stated that they engaged in binge drinking in the previous month. In the same year, there were about 17 millions adults (18+) who suffer from an Alcohol Use Disorder in the U.S (9.9% men, 4.6% women). In 2006 problems related to alcohol misuse cost the U.S. $223.5 billion. A whopping 75% of that cost is related to binge drinking, which I think shows the great extent to which the culture of binge drinking is having on American society.
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| 2012 data from the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) showing the percentage of adults per state who binge drink. Source: The New York Times |
According to 2004 Australian statistics, 12% of men and 4% of women were binge drinking at least once a week. This has since increased to 18% of Australians (aged 20-29) binge drinking at least once a week. Research from 2010 revealed that alcohol abuse costs Australia $36 billion a year. This is a very large cost and I would say more so significant than the cost the same has the U.S., given that this amount significantly outweighs the population of the entire country. This may be yet again another indicator of how alcohol-related issues a larger problem in Australia than in the U.S.
The culture of binge drinking in both the U.S. and Australia is dominated by young people, notably university students. American colleges are known worldwide for having social cultures on their campuses characterized by partying and drinking excessively. Images of students holding the iconic "red Solo cups" in dorm rooms and at fraternities and sororities for example, are known throughout the world. Much of the drinking is done illegally, since the U.S. legal age to drink is 21, while most Americans enter college at age 18 and do not turn 21 until their third of four years in college. In 2008, one hundred college presidents and chancellors pushed to lower the legal drinking age to 18. The group argued that since most students could not drink legally, this led them to be more likely to drink. However a study by the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis published in The Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry found that the legal drinking age of 21 is for the most part effective in reducing binge drinking overall, except only in college students. The true reason college administrators pushed for this legal change was to eliminate their liability of having to deal with illegal drinking activities on their campuses. As a former American college student myself, I can attest that the binge drinking culture that this study speaks of is very real and present. College students drink to get drunk and alcohol is deemed necessary before and during any party or social event. In general drinking controls the weekend night culture and those who did not drink are considered "weird."
In 2010 an article was published in The Sydney Morning Herald writen by Australian university student about the binge drinking culture. Upon reading the article, I could not help but think that this article could have been easily authored by American college student. I would say that the binge drinking culture participated in by the majority of university students in the U.S. is essentially identical. Student, Joshua Blake, explains, that Australian culture is now one that is deems young people "abnormal" if they do not get drunk and party hard regularly. He also states that he believes that drinking is Australian, but Australian culture accepts binge drinking as normal and he does not believe it right "... we accept drinking as an integral part of our national identity and culture, society has normalised and continues to legitimise binge drinking". Although Australia, has a historical roots and a culture of heavy drinking, Blake believes this does not prevent it from addressing the problem.
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| 2008 poll of NSW residents. Source: The Sydney Morning Herald |
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| Source: http://www.baysidepsychotherapy.com.au/ |
The U.S., on the other hand, although suffers great cost from alcohol abuse both economically and health-wise (88,000 people die per year due to alcohol related injury), have not instituted any national preventative strategy. I was not able to find any current government initiative to address binge drinking. What I did find was a 2012 article by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) about binge drinking suggesting what can be done policy-wise and in the community to address the issue. The CDC suggests that the U.S. government support states and communities to develop preventative strategies as well as determine whether present ones are working. The CDC also suggests that the U.S. government help states track statistics on binge drinking, in addition to the laws that regulate the marketing of alcohol. This all may be an indicator that the American government does not think that binge drinking is a not a significant enough issue to merit the kind of support that the Australian has put towards the problem.
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| 2012 data from the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) Source: CDC |
Current Alcohol Policy Issue in Australia: Kings Cross
The Kings Cross neighborhood in Sydney, Australia is known by locals as "The Cross". New laws have been implemented to hinder night time alcohol consumption in the Cross and a few other neighborhoods, but the Cross is the area that has received the most attention due to its well-known reputation. Historically the Cross has always been the red light district capital of Sydney and Australia. In modern times it is frequented by young people every weekend to visit the many bars and clubs located there. The Cross has gained an infamous reputation for being a hot bed of alcohol-fuelled mayhem on the weekends.
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| "The Coke Sign", as called by locals, is an iconic landmark considered to be the gateway to Kings Cross . Source: The Sydney Morning Herald |
In February of this past year new laws have come into place that apply to the "CBD (Central Business District) Entertainment Precinct of Sydney. This precinct, pictured below, in addition to Kings Cross, covers the neighborhoods of Surry Hills, Darlinghurst, The Rocks, and Cockle Bay.
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| The red area denotes the CBD Entertainment Precinct in Sydney. The yellow area denotes Kings Cross. Source: www.nsw.gov.au |
The following lists the new laws that have been implemented:
· 1:30 AM lockouts and 3
AM last drinks at hotels, registered clubs, nightclubs and licenced
karaoke bars. Small bars (maximum 60 people), most restaurants and tourism
accommodation establishments are exempt. Venues licensed to stay open
after 3 AM can do so without serving alcohol.
· Temporary ban of 48 hours for problem visitors.
· NSW-wide ban of takeaway alcohol sales at bottle shops,
hotels and clubs after 10 PM. (For American readers, "takeaway" is the Australian word for "take out" and
"bottle shops" are liquor stores.)
· Two year freeze on approvals for new and existing licenses.
· Revoking of Competency cards and disqualifications (up to 12
months) for bar staff break responsible service of alcohol requirements.
· Licensees will be fined up to $11,000 and/or imprisonment of
up to 12 months, in addition to receiving strikes under the Government's Three Strikes
disciplinary scheme for failure to comply with the new laws.
To address this problem, in March 2008, the Liquor Administration Board put into force 3 AM closures, 1 AM lockouts, and other measures specifically for those licensees who could trade until 5 AM in the Newcastle CBD. Since the laws have been imposed in Newcastle, police and residents have observed greater safety in the streets and in the licensed venues.
Some specific positive effects of the laws have been:
- 33% fall in alcohol-related non domestic assaults.
- Alcohol-related non domestic assaults are now at a 14 year low.
- 50% reduction in night time street crime.
- 26% reduction in alcohol-related hospital emergency admissions.
The push for the lockout laws to be imposed in Sydney resulted from numerous tragic incidents caused by alcohol-fuelled violence in the Cross. Two 18 year olds, Daniel Christie and Thomas Kelly, were victims of "king hits" while visiting the Cross in 2012 and 2013. A "king hit" is the term used to describe when the offender, who is usually very intoxicated, gives a single punch to the head of an unknowing stranger. Christie and Kelly both were knocked unconscious, never regained consciousness, and then passed away. King hits are now being referred to "coward punches" at the request of victims families.
"One-punch laws" that impose mandatory sentencing on coward punch offenders also became a public policy debate in NSW due to these incidents. Such a law was introduced in Western Australia in 2008 and the Northern Territory in 2012, but they have not had a great effect. Some believe the law does not deter offenders who are very drunk early in the morning with a desire to be violent. At the same time at which the lock out laws were passed this past year, the NSW Parliament also passed a "one punch law" giving an eight year sentence to anyone who fatally punches another under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
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| Typical weekend night scene on the street in the Cross. Source: http://liamsaville.wordpress.com/ |
Above is a 2012 ABC News Australia video showing what a
typical weekend night in the Cross is like.
There are a couple good documentaries that discuss these alcohol related issues in Sydney and in other areas of Australia that I highly suggest watching.: The first documentary I suggest is called "Punch Drunk" (click link for video) from February 2013. The documentary profiles a young man who suffered a coward punch in the Gold Coast, Queensland. Fortunately he survived but his life has been ruined due to the brain damage he received. He is extremely disabled, needs 24 hour care, and is only now learning to walk again years since the incident. The documentary also follows the Rocks Police in Sydney on a typical weekend night. The Rocks Police report that 70% of their street work is alcohol-related. Alcohol-related incidents brings about an enormous costs on police, ambulance, and hospital services, as well as thousands are arrested each year across Australia for assaulting police.
A newer documentary called "Dead Drink: Lights Out in the Cross?" specifically discusses the issues in the Cross and follows young people and police on a weekend night out in April 2014, a couple months after the new lockout laws were imposed.
Below is the trailer and click here to watch the full documentary.
My Experience in "The Cross"
Now that I have discussed the debate over Kings Cross and the new laws that have been implemented this past February, I would like to illustrate my one night experience in the Cross, accompanied by my blog co-author. Fortunately my experience was relatively "uneventful" in terms of the mayhem that can be seen in the Cross.
While visiting Sydney, my co-author insisted that "I had to see Kings Cross." It is a place that he has hardly ever been because it is "too crazy". And he was right, the scene was crazy. It was nothing like I ever seen before, certainly not in a U.S. city, not even any of the college parties I have ever been to compared, nor anything like the nightlife I saw during my time abroad in continental Europe. But it was very similar to the drinking scene that I witnessed while visiting Galway, Ireland. As I discussed earlier in this post, the two nations share similar drinking habits due to to their connected histories and obviously these habits also ring true today. My co-author has also previously said to me that "Ireland and Australia have the same culture".
The most shocking thing to me in the Cross was the appearance of the ladies visiting the area. There were lots of people on the sidewalk and in the street walking, talking, and yelling, some clearly very drunk. In the crowds the women stood out because nearly all were wearing skin-tight short dresses and extremely tall high heels. One could categorise their outfits as "skanky". The women I saw in Galway, Ireland in my night out there dressed identically to the women I saw in the Cross. Speaking of the English Puritans that I discussed earlier in this post, I felt like a "Puritan" wearing a relatively simple black dress that was not skin-tight, did not show provocative cleavage, and my shoes were only medium height heels. I considered wearing flats but I knew from my experience in Ireland that all the ladies would be sporting heels, so I decided to join them. However, by the end of the night I was cursing my decision when my feet were killing me from all of the walking and dancing. I do not how all of these Australian and Irish ladies do it!
From my memory, the bars and clubs in the Cross varied in terms of how they busy they were. There were many to choose from. I remember going to one bar/club at the beginning of the night and we were one of the few people in there. It may have been early in the night though, which may have contributed to the low occupancy. Afterwards we went to a very popular bar/club called "The World Bar" that my co-author had visited before and quite liked. When we arrived, it was clearly very popular by the long line to get in. The outside appearance was of the club was enticing as well; it looked like it would have an "indie/hip" atmosphere. The line moved quickly and after paying a hefty cover, probably about $20 AUD, we got inside. I do not remember it being especially crazy inside, but it was very full of people. In general I remember people being well-behaved. However, I do remember falling down on one of the dance floors. Not from my own inebriation though! From my past experiences, I have found that when you put a lot of "tipsy" people together dancing there is bound to be some "pushing and shoving". In this instance, the weight of a few people near me was too much and knocked me over. I was fine though!
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| Outside of World Bar in the Cross. Source: TimeOut Sydney |
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| The World Bar's famous teapots used to serve mixed drinks. Source. venuemob.com.au |
On Friday and Saturday nights:
• no shots and doubles can be sold after midnight
• no person can buy more than four alcoholic drinks at a time after midnight
On every night of the week:
• glasses, glass bottles and glass jugs are banned after midnight
The teapot that we wanted to purchase were filled with a cocktail, meaning that they contained shots. The teapots were also pretty big, meant to be shared among a few people. They may have contained five shots in them (1 shot=1 drink), since it was a large pot and was diluted with a non-alcoholic drink for multiple people to share. The teapots also were made out of ceramic. Although ceramic is not glass, it may come under the glass category in the laws, since it is breakable.
Some of the other laws that were implemented in December 2012 concerning Friday and Saturday nights were the following:
• Two Responsible Service of Alcohol marshals must be on duty in higher risk venues after midnight (one marshal is required in some lower risk venues)
• No alcohol can be sold or supplied in the hour before closing.
• Venue managers must immediately notify police of any violence causing injury, and preserve the crime scene
• All higher risk licensed venues must maintain a digital CCTV system covering entries and exits, the footpath immediately adjacent to the venue, and all publicly accessible areas within the venue (excluding toilets). It must operate continuously from opening time until one hour after closing and footage must be provided to authorities within one working day of a request
• Incident registers must be maintained at all times (rather than just after midnight, as was previously the case).
All of these laws are quite interesting because I don't know of any place in the U.S. that has such strict laws surrounding when and how to sell alcohol at a bar or club. In the times I have been at a bar or club at closing time in the U.S., you can buy as many drinks as you want and can do so right up until closing time. However in my experiences, closing times is the places I have gone out in the U.S. are much earlier than in Australia. For example, there is no specific closing time for bars in New South Wales.
In the U.S. closing times depend state to state and also by city. Generally in the U.S. a 1-3 AM closing time is typical, but some places are able to stay open later. In "Sin City", Las Vegas, Nevada, bars can be open 24 hours a day! In the state of Maine, where I currently reside, closing time is 1 AM. In my opinion a 1 AM closing time makes it hard for someone to get extremely drunk without beginning drinking very early in the night, which for most is probably not likely. A very early closing time like this cuts out what could be another 4+ hours or so of drinking at bars. And for some people, the more they drink and get drunk, pushes them to want to drink more. Giving people hours more of access to alcohol allows them to act on this desire.
Anyways, back to my night in the Cross...and my description of the most "crazy" part of the night. What happened was very funny looking back on it afterwards, but in the moment was a bit scary! My co-author and I were standing on the sidewalk in front of a Turkish döner kebab take-away shop. For readers who are not familiar with kebabs, they are a popular end of the night out "drunk food" in Europe and Australia. In my experience, generally they are not as well known in the U.S., but can be found in big cities. When I studied abroad in Vienna, Austria, you could get kebabs from a stand at all hours of the day and night. So my co-author and I were eating our kebabs not far from the shop front, when a random guy came up to us who was likely about our age. He was clearly very drunk, or high on drugs, or both. Of all things I was expecting him to ask us, I did not expect him to turn to my co-author and ask "Can I have a bite of your kebab?" My co-author stayed very calm and said, "No, mate. Sorry." The guy was pretty persistent despite being rejected. Given all of the turmoil in the media surrounding the violence that takes place in the Cross, I was getting worried the guy would become angry or violent towards him. My friend acted smart and spoke in a level-headed way with him. Eventually after a few more repetitions of "Sorry mate" and "No, get your own," he eventually backed off.
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| Source: http://itp.aminus3.com/ |
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| Typical late night kebab shops in the Cross. Source: mashable.com |
Positive and Negative Effects of the Lockout Laws
So are the laws in Kings Cross and the rest of the Entertainment CBD working to decrease alcohol-related incidents? What other effects are they having?
In early September the NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Michael Fuller spoke before a NSW parliamentary inquiry regarding the effects of the lockout laws. Mr. Fuller stated that in the six months since the laws had been in place there were only two recorded incidents of assault causing grievous bodily harm, while in the same time period in the previous year there had been 22. The police had also given 350 banning orders. A banning order can prohibit a person who has been convicted of a serious alcohol-related offence from the Kings Cross precinct for up to a year. The City of Sydney conducted a study of foot traffic over six Saturday nights in March and April and found that it had decreased by 84% on Darlinghurst Road and 78% on Bayswater Road, two significant roadways in the Cross, compared to December 2012. St. Vincent's Hospital in Darlinghurst, which is the main recipient of alcohol-related admissions on the weekend, has found a significant reduction since the new laws. Dr. Tony Grabs, who is the head of trauma at St. Vincent's, has called the difference since the lockout laws implementation "a dramatic change".
During the Kings Cross policy debate before the laws were imposed, some people argued that the lockout laws would cause people to visit other Sydney neighborhoods, such as Newtown, Pyrmont and Paddington, and bring the violence with them. However, Mr. Fuller stated that there has been a slightly increased presence of of people in these areas, but there has been no increase in violence. Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, next to Newtown, reported it has actually had a small reduction in alcohol-related admissions. It is still early to evaluate the full effect of the laws though, since Mr. Fuller's report was only based on four months of data since the laws were implemented. Thus I expect in the coming months more analysis of the laws' effects will be done and and publicised.
Despite that the lockout laws are having positive effects thus far, they are having some negative economic effects. In February, just after the laws were implemented, a Kings Cross security guard attested to that businesses were already feeling the effects and closing up, most recently witnessing a food store closing. A night club owner also stated his dislike for the laws and his belief that they were punishing everyone for the crimes of only a few. Now that it has been six months since the laws were imposed, the negative effects on the Cross's buisnesses are even more evident.
Mark Gerber, the owner of the Oxford Art Factory music and art venue in Darlinghurst, has said the laws have largely affected his business. His gross sales have dropped 13-15% and he has had to cut back on staff. People come to Gerber's venue to see music, not to get drunk, but his loss in profits has made it hard to hire bands and support the local music industry. Gerber feels is it unfair that his business was subjected to the laws, since his goal with his business has been for years to help eliminate the binge drinking culture: "...art and culture can actually do some good for the community...it can actually eradicate some of the problems that people have got with over-drinking and binge drinking where the objective is purely just to get drunk."
Additionally, food businesses are being negatively affected by the laws. When I talked about my experience in the Cross, having a kebab at the end of the night was an important part. Food businesses in the Cross depend on high numbers of visitors and being open into the early morning since the night time is when they make all of their profits. Michael Guven owns one of the most popular kebab and pizza businesses in the Cross and he reported losing 40% of his business. Guven also comments that many shops have "for lease" signs and most small businesses are suffering greatly. He believes that educating young people about alcohol is key to decreasing alcohol-fuelled violence, not by decreasing trading hours: "We have to educate the people. We cannot educate the alcohol, it's impossible."
A recent recent article from late September, speaks further to what business owners in the Cross have been noticing about a suffering late night economy in the area. Fairfax Media has found 35 shops closed on the main 300 metre-strip of the Cross. Small business owners unequivocally blame the lockout laws fpr a now declining Cross, but there is some evidence to indicate that the Cross has been in decline for awhile. In the past eight to nine years there has been gentrification in the area that is leading the Cross towards becoming more residential area with the influx of long-term residential housing. This past year 1,800 hotel rooms have been removed and recently one of the largest mid-range hotels in the area, the Crest, was sold and the rooms are to be turned into apartments. There is no day economy in the Cross currently, but current residents desire for it to return.
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Source: The Sydney Morning Herald since the lockout laws have been in effect. Source: The Sydney Morning Herald |
Not only are the lockout laws causing some people to frequent other area of the city, but they are also contributing to a spike in illegal and dangerous warehouse parties, reinvigorating a scene that has not been strong since the 1980s. The suburbs of Marrickville and Alexandria are suburbs that were already known for having warehouse parties, but since the new laws, there has been an increase in these events there according to promoters and performers in the music scene. These events occur in unsanctioned areas, bringing in up to 900 attendees who bring their own alcohol (BYO). There are no cameras or security at these venues which have many safety hazards.
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| BYO warehouse parties, such as this one, are becoming more popular in Sydney since the implementation of the lockout laws. Source: TimeOut Sydney |
There must be a balance between favoring the economy and favoring public safety. People's lives have been ruined and destroyed by the alcohol-related incidents in Sydney, and across Australia. The Australian economy is also affected overall by the costs of police, emergency services, and hospital services that must attend to alcohol related incidents. The NSW parliamentary inquiry stated in response to shop and nightclub owners complaints of large business losses: "I understand that shopkeepers and nightclubs are going through pain, but we cannot let this carnage continue." I think this quote represents the overall attitude of the Sydney and NSW government towards the issue. People's health and safety must outweigh interests of businesses in this instance.
Going forward I think it is important to keep a close eye on the effects of these laws, especially whether other parts of the city are affected. Currently other suburbs, like Newtown, are seeing higher late night trading, but no increased violence. It is important to observe whether this changes. I also think the project started by Revive Australia and the Potts Point Partnership is a great way to keep the local economy alive, despite the laws negative effects on businesses. Similar endeavors like this one should be supported by the government to counteract the effects of the laws.
While these laws are a good immediate measure to increase public safety in these areas, they do not address the broader societal problem of excessive drinking. These laws prevent people from staying out late drinking excessively, but I do not think they will cause people to drink less overall. The government initiatives and organisations dedicated to drinking problems must continue to engage in instigating a broader societal change in people's attitudes towards drinking. However, I think this will not be easy.
I opened this blog post with Australia's historical ties to excessive drinking and that drinking is strong part of the culture especially for young people. Excessive drinking for young people is certainly not just a symptom of Australian culture, but of young people in the Western world in the 21st century. Young people in America and Europe love to drink also. But as Joshua Blake, the Australian university quoted earlier in this post said: "Admittedly Australia is not the only country with heavy drinking inherent in its national identity, but by that count, we are not the only country with a problem and one evil does not beget another." He believes Australians need to abandon the excuse that heavy drinking is a part of Australian drinking because it is being used to legitimise dangerous drinking behavior. I agree with him. Drinking is a part of Australian culture, but cultural ties to drinking do not prevent the success of learning to drink in a healthier way.
Written by: The American.
