‘Speak-easies’ serving grog on the sly in lockdown

Like something from the Prohibition era, there are plenty of bars ready to serve patrons during Melbourne’s lockdown — if you know where to look.

This lockdown is beginning to feel a little bit like a scene from The Untouchables.

Well-heeled patrons scuttling out a restaurant back door “like rats as the fuzz come in the front door” is one description of life in lockdown.

Blinds are pulled to mask the revelry inside in spite of eye-watering fines and stay-at-home restrictions.

Melbourne is not Chicago, but you might think it’s Prohibition in the roaring ‘20s with restaurants and bar doors opening a crack to let you in.

You don’t have to say “Joe sent me,” but “speak-easies are serving grog on the sly” says a customer.

Life is not so much locked down, but locked in.

The hospitality industry is on its knees because of widespread restrictions as we enter another week of lockdown 6.0.

La Vida Lockdown is forcing many restaurateurs and bar owners to flout government restrictions while serving patrons on the hush-hush.

So-called “business meetings” inside swish bayside mansions are another way of living the sweet life with more than a few of your best friends around.

“You’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do,” was one bar owner’s comment to Page 13.

It wasn’t Eliot Ness and the Untouchables at the door but it must have felt like it when the PoPo came knocking following Victoria’s snap 8pm lockdown last Thursday.

Was it a coincidence they called on Chris Lucas, one of the most vocal critics of the lockdowns, at his new multimillion-dollar Society restaurant in Collins St.

Next was Paul Dimattina at his famed Lamaro’s restaurant in South Melbourne.

Both copped $10,000 fines in spite of protesting that they were not trading after hours.

But were the police at the wrong address?

The drinks were pouring well into the night at plenty of other inner-east eateries.

But we are not one to drink and tell.

Meanwhile, even the puffer-jacketed school mums have gone rogue at playgrounds in lockdown 6.0.

“Think of the children” is the line trotted out when the mums are confronted by the local Mrs Mangel at park birthday parties for their little ones.

Mums in Melbourne’s leafy burbs defiantly wave the fairy bread and pull out the Cheezels as they corral their SUVs.