Premier right to relax lockout laws, but don’t mourn the Cross
Premier Gladys Berejiklian is to relax the lockout laws for all of the city except the Cross, which will remain under lock and key. That’s the right move: a sensible moderation of policy that won’t bring back the violent nightmare the Cross used to be.
Opinion
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Nobody, but nobody, should be mourning the Kings Cross of 10 years ago.
It was a sleazy, dirty, dark place where women were not safe and, as it turned out, neither were young men. The overnight crews at St Vincent’s Hospital, just up the hill, might as well have been in downtown Caracas, dealing with overdoses, alcohol poisonings, serious facial fractures from drunks falling over or being pushed, stab wounds, major trauma from assaults, concussions — and that was after the threat of doctors and nurses themselves assaulted by the array of angry, impatient and judgment-impaired people crowding the emergency waiting room.
Taxi drivers cruised down Bayswater Road, windows down, illegally auctioning a ride home to desperate revellers willing to pay almost anything to get out.
Carloads of wide-eyed tourists from the country drove at crawling pace along Macleay Street to gape at the prostitutes and strip-club spruikers; at the junkies sprawled in doorways; at the sweaty businessmen swaying towards the neon signs.
Packs of drunken men would pour out of the train station every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night, drawn by the allure of drugs and girls and, sometimes, a fight.
And weaving through it all were the innocents: suburban kids keen to walk along the edge of Sydney’s glittery danger, just to have a look.
Like Thomas Kelly. And Daniel Christie. They both died in sickening unprovoked assaults as the hordes of police crowding the Cross fought in vain to hold back a tide of heedless morons who never wanted the party to stop.
When the party did eventually stop, the first to leave the Cross were the publicans and nightclub owners who’d profited from the mayhem for far too long.
The alcohol restrictions — no entry to venues after 1.30am, last drinks at 3am — should not necessarily have meant the death of fun in the Cross. The vast majority of Sydneysiders can enjoy themselves without any need to endlessly roam between venues or continue pouring drinks down their throats until sunrise.
It was the panicking venue operators who ensured the death of the “old Cross”, by spreading the message far and wide that there was no point venturing past Darling Harbour if you wanted to have a good time. Why? Because they didn’t really want well-behaved patrons who would drink in moderation.
Their target market was the boozehounds who’d blow their paypackets on cocktails and drugs sold by the dealers who were allowed to ply their trade in certain venues with a nod and a wink from the bosses.
Once the perception took hold that the Cross was closing up, the crowds ebbed. That killed off the strip clubs and the bars — even the responsible ones which didn’t allow drug dealers free rein.
Today we reveal Premier Gladys Berejiklian is to relax the lockout laws for all of the city except the Cross, which will remain under lock and key.
That’s the right move: a sensible moderation of policy that won’t bring back the violent nightmare the Cross used to be.