500 years of pub history under threat from Sydney’s NUMBYS
Between them they’ve been serving Sydneysiders beers for more than 500 years, now this quartet of historic Sydney pubs is under threat from the city’s growing NUMBY army - the Not Under My Balcony Yuppy - and our “nanny state”. POLL: TELL US WHAT YOU THINK
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Between them they’ve been serving Sydneysiders beers for more than 500 years, now this quartet of historic Sydney pubs is under threat from the city’s growing NUMBY army — the Not Under My Balcony Yuppy — and our “nanny state”.
The string of centuries-old hotels are battling more and more noise complaints as apartment dwellers are moving in and trying to move old pubs out with many saying their very livlihoods are now under threat.
Now many are appealing for the rest of the community to fight back or risk losing their favourite watering holes.
NARRABEEN RSL HIT FOR BREACHING NOISE COMPLAINTS
Double Bay’s 145-year-old Royal Oak Hotel publican Peter Tate is calling on the community to fight the “nanny state” bans, warning if the same rule is applied to other licenced venues then the Double Bay “cosmopolitan village is dead”.
His plea came after Woollahra Council ordered the hotel to stop patrons drinking a beer on tables out the front unless they’re eating a meal at the same time, because of noise complaints from neighbouring apartment-dwellers.
A letter from Liberal Wentworth candidate Dave Sharma urging Woollahra Council general manager Gary James not to target the Royal Oak hotel couldn’t stop the ban on outdoor drinking, not could the threat of blowback from regular patrons Malcolm Turnbull, Justin Langer and Brett Finch.
The 107-year-old Kings Cross Hotel has also been ordered by Sydney City Council to close down its rooftop because residents who moved in to the neighbourhood two months ago have complained the pub is too noisy.
Owner, hospitality giant Solotel, has refused to obey a 28-day rooftop trading ban, which was supposed to start two weeks ago, and has instead hired an army of lawyers and town planners to argue the fine print.
Solotel CEO Justine Baker claimed state planning laws don’t protect pubs.
“Our rights over the use of our wonderful old hotel cease to exist as soon as apartment opens next door,” she said.
The 89-year-old Moore Park View Hotel will soon build walls and a roof over its outdoor deck, so two residents in a neighbouring apartment building built five years ago don’t have to put up with patrons “speaking loudly and singing”.
Australian Hotels Association (AHA) NSW Director of Liquor and Policing John Green says he’s disgusted.
“Generally speaking, the idea a person can move in next to a pub that’s been part of local culture since the 1800s and not only complain about noise, but actually have some success in changing longstanding practices which impact many people should be a joke, but sadly the reality is that it’s all too often true,” Mr Green said.
“People who should know better. They need to understand a pub is a pub.”