Sunken Monkey Hotel removed from most violent pub list

The annual list of the NSW hotels with the highest number of violent incidents has been released. Not only has one local pub been removed from the rankings but the coast has a clean slate.

Erina's Sunken Monkey Hotel has been removed from the State’s most violent pub list.

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One of the Central Coast’s most popular pubs has been removed from the list of the State’s most violent venues.

The Sunken Monkey at Erina was ranked equal third-worst by NSW Liquor and Gaming in May 2017 with 16 incidents recorded.

There are no Central Coast venues on the list this year with the Ivy Hotel in Sydney topping the violence ranking with 16 incidents, the Coast Hotel Coffs Harbour next with 13 incidents, and the Belmore Hotel at Maitland third with 12 incidents.

View over the creek from the Sunken Monkey Hotel.

The Sunken Monkey on the banks of Erina Creek was bought by unnamed Sydney investors at the end of 2018 for an undisclosed sum.

It was previously known as The Woodport Inn and was bought by four partners in 2015 including David Roy who was the majority­ shareholder.

The group did a major renovation of the building and changed it’s name to The Sunken Monkey with the aim of turning it into one of the leading entertainment venues on the Central Coast.

The Woodport Inn Erina before being renamed the Sunken Monkey and a major renovation.

At the time of making the most violent list in 2017, David Roy, questioned the validity of the annual most violent pubs list.

He said the list was based purely on the number of incidents over a 12 month period without taking into account the number of patrons who used the pub — as many as 10,000 per month in the case of the Sunken Monkey.

He said this skewed the list toward larger venues, but ignored the fact that the number of incidents might be a very tiny proportion of total visitors.