Jessica Leo-Kelton: Let Adelaide suburbs share in small bar trend
AS the small bar trend outdoes itself and cleverly ups the ante in the CBD, those in the suburbs craving a piece of the action can only look on bemused and frustrated.
ROLL up, roll up ladies and gentlemen – mind you, not too many – Adelaide can now boast having one of the smallest small bars going around.
In case you missed it, the team behind pioneering nightspots Clever Little Tailor and Pink Moon Saloon tightened its stronghold on the burgeoning small bar sector, last week unveiling Pink Moon Deli, a less than six-metre-square space boasting zero indoor seating and 12 perches outside.
As the small bar trend outdoes itself and cleverly ups the ante in the CBD, those in the suburbs craving a piece of the action can only look on bemused and frustrated by this latest development.
Despite a current wide-ranging review into the state’s liquor licensing laws and therefore an opportunity to level the playing field when it comes to permitting small bars across Adelaide, the State Government has remained resolutely tight-lipped on the issue.
The cause has not been helped by former Supreme Court judge Tim Anderson, who two months ago released his 129 recommendations to the review, only recommending extending small bars as far as North Adelaide.
Great news for Adelaide City Council which is already like the cat who got the cream but not for scores of metropolitan councils screaming out for the licensing change, among them Prospect and Holdfast Bay.
With the addition of small bars and laneway activation in the CBD, South Australians have proved they are an entrepreneurial and enterprising bunch.
And there’s no reason this innovation and ensuing success would not be replicated beyond the borders of East, West and South terraces.
Add to this the fact we have a State Government hellbent on urban infill and cramming as many bodies as possible into our ’burbs.
Planning changes to allow higher-density developments along suburban corridors, a worrying review of heritage constraints and, most recently, a rethink on green space requirements for new developments points to a government keen on giving the neighbourhoods of Adelaide a new identity.
Firstly, all these people being crammed into our once leafy suburbs might want somewhere to drown their sorrows as most probably won’t have backyards in a few short years given the way the government is heading.
Secondly, yes there are pubs dotted about, but the example of Pink Moon Deli only serves to demonstrate the small bar trend is growing exponentially to the size of the venues involved.
Beard-stroking hipsters drinking craft beers might have fuelled the trend but the rest of us are well and truly on the bandwagon.
Small bars are not a fad, they’re a changing of the guard.
And finally, with a government so single-minded in its erosion of suburban norms, the reticence to embrace the small bar movement further afield seems astonishingly short-sighted and stunted. Sure, controls will be necessary to ensure small bars don’t become the Salvation Jane of the ‘burbs and erode the native species of traditional pubs and even restaurants, but I’d certainly rather see a small bar spring up at the end of my street than have a heritage building demolished.
In fact, lets preserve our heritage places by cutting red tape to turn those disused or previously unloved into small bars.
That would be a win-win situation worth raising a glass to.
But perhaps it’s just the State Government doesn’t want to share and hand the control of this hot-button issue over to councils.
After all, the recent changes to planning laws and the review on heritage constraints do quite the opposite, increasingly chopping councils – who have a vested interest in making their patch of Adelaide the best locale possible for residents – out of the picture.
Sadly I fear that we have got a fight – rather than beer – brewing when it comes to a small bar change which could have a big impact for the better.
JESSICA LEO-KELTON IS MESSENGER COMMUNITY NEWS’ EDITOR-IN-CHIEF