Lockout laws have made a bad problem worse

REPLACING one law with a more stringent one has never worked, but now Sydney needs to tackle the issues that led it needing lockout laws in the first place, writes Miranda Devine.

YOU just have to spend an evening in buzzy, civilised Melbourne to realise the silliness of Sydney’s lockout laws.

Our CBD is boring and deserted, its night-life non-existent as revellers are forced out into the burbs or the tacky environs of the Casino.

Introduced with good intentions in 2014 to stop an epidemic of one-punch fatalities, the lockout laws in the city and Kings Cross became yet another example of the folly of the nanny state.

Now the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party have put the issue back on the agenda with a bill to repeal the laws, it’s time to rethink. But it’s not enough to scrap the laws without changing the environment that led to the one-punch problem.

Not enough cultural change has been made yet to reverse the lockout laws. Picture: iStock

Draconian “responsible service of alcohol” legislation has made drinking establishments paranoid. Pubs and clubs are under threat of severe penalties, including loss of licence, prosecution and fines of $11,000 if they are found “supplying liquor to an intoxicated patron”. Not blind stonking drunk, but slightly tipsy.

So, naturally, to avoid trouble from licensing authorities, zero tolerance for intoxication was enforced by bouncers pushing large numbers of young men onto the street, where they roamed around, separated from their friends, frustrated, with nowhere to go.

This was a recipe for disaster and no surprise if the occasional fight broke out. But out on the street there were no friends or bouncers to intervene, and instead of falling onto soft carpet inside a pub, victims fell onto hard footpaths with sometimes fatal consequences.

The problem in the first place was too much regulation and the worst solution was more regulation.