Deadline: The dos and don’ts of South Melbourne’s swingers club Pineapple Lifestyle Bar

Not just any Tom, Dick and Harriet looking for a good time can roll up to Melbourne’s newest swingers club. These are the dos and don’ts to gain admission to Pineapple Lifestyle Bar.

There are a lot of hoops to jump through to gain entry to Melbourne’s latest swinger’s club.

Andrew Rule and Mark Buttler with the latest scallywag scuttlebutt.

Plans were last week revealed to open a new South Melbourne swingers venue known as Pineapple’s Lifetyle Bar.

Deadline was particularly interested in the rules at such an establishment after our exhaustive investigation some time back into regulations governing the Monkey Club in Kew.

The investigation revealed that the Monkey Club rules included edicts that guests not carry excess kilos, not wear scungy old jocks and to please provide a proof-of-lifestyle image in advance to show their “classiness.”

So, as part of our commitment to important public interest journalism, we’ve trawled the Pineapple’s website to get an idea of the dos and don’ts.

The non nondescript South Melbourne building that will house Melbourne’s newest swingers club. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

First step for those wanting some action is to look the part.

You’ll need to be in dressy casual, classy nightwear or dining wear even to get in the door and don’t even think about showing in “light denim.”

Do not lob at the City Rd hotspot in Crocs, Ugg boots, thongs or moccasins. Those who do are likely to get the rough end of the Pineapple.

Other banned clothing includes work uniforms, torn garments, gym gear, army camo, onesies, cosplay and swimwear.

Patrons are rightly warned to keep their hands to themselves around other clients, unless given the green light.

“Hate speech” is out of bounds and no drugs are permitted.

Forget about lighting a smoke or hitting the vape after some physical exertion because they’re off limits, too.

All so classy, except for the spelling. Visitors are requested to be on deck by 11pm to help build “repour” with other guests.

We’d like to tell you more but further Pineapple internet searches only came up with the message “bandwidth limit exceeded”.

This, apparently, means the site has more traffic than it can cope with.

Trouble at the rifle club

Just when they’d got over the embarrassment of supposedly having convicted Wonnangatta killer Greg Lynn popping into the rifle range with fellow deer shooters, Werribee Rifle Club has been wracked with internal wrangling that has made several members rather gun shy.

“The club’s gone mad,” reports one longtime Deadline source.

“They had to hold one bloke down two Saturdays ago because he was threatening other members.”

The source of the friction is, allegedly, because some old-fashioned and fiscally conservative members are asking what happened to the concept of getting written quotations for any building or maintenance jobs that need doing around the club premises.

It’s a case of shots fired out at the Werribee Rifle Club.

Some members think money has been misappropriated, or simply wasted, because (they claim) jobs have been handed out to relatives of key members without the bother of getting quotes.

The result, says one disgruntled chap, is a crude toilet block built of corrugated iron sheeting, totally unlined, that cost three times what some sceptical members believe it should have. But requests for an audit have been constantly refused, one outraged member tells us.

Another sticking point is that a ledger supposed to be used to record legitimate ammunition sales to licensed shooters and club members has been “replaced” with a new blank ledger for no apparent reason.

Watch this space. It could end up with bullet holes in it.

He’s an Angel

While we’re talking about veteran Melbourne crime figures, a loyal reader has pointed out the unusual Facebook profile photo of Hells Angels tough-guy Peter Hewat.

He is a most formidable character but the image of Hewat, known far and wide by the nickname “Skitzo,” depicts him as a robed priest at the pulpit.

It’s a safe bet there’s been some crude photoshopping and that Hewat hasn’t taken any sacred vows.

It could be said, as Donald Trump remarked of himself recently, that God has been on his side in the recent past.

Peter “Skitzo” Hewat outside court in Melbourne. Picture: Ellen Smith

“Skitzo” depicted as a robed priest at the pulpit.

Gangland observers will recall how the ageing action man was shot at in July last year after a break-in at his heavy haulage truck business in Technical Drive, Craigieburn.

The 69-year-old chased one of two Kenworths which were stolen until it pulled over in Mickleham.

The alleged thief is accused of climbing out and firing two shots at Hewat, who was not injured.

We’ll leave the rest of it to the courts, which will not be interested in irrelevant matters such as whether Hewat and some of his fellow Angels were closely associated with the Visy cardboard business when it was run by the late Dick Pratt.

Wicked rumour mongers suggested that the little band of Angels made Visy strike proof, as they could use their trucks to keep Pratt’s products on the move regardless of industrial unrest.

This would appeal to another famous and feared captain of industry, the one who had one-time Australian heavyweight champ Jimmy Thunder escorting him around work sites during times of trouble. But he’s still alive. So no names, no pack drill.

Machinegun sprays judge in drive-by

Dragan “Machinegun Charlie” Arnautovic has fought many battles in the kickboxing ring, on the streets and in courts.

The latest target in his sights is former County Court Judge Felicity Hampel, who was in April appointed as chair of the Post Sentence Authority.

As well as having one of the great underworld nicknames, “Machinegun” is fond of writing sharp letters from prison on a range of issues.

In the latest, sent to our colleague Craig Dunlop, he blasts the state government’s appointment of Ms Hampel to head the Authority.

Dragan Arnautovic, aka Machinegun Charlie as he was in 1999.

Dunlop had earlier reported that Ms Hampel would earn a tidy penny heading a body which oversees the supervision of serious offenders after they leave jail.

Arnautovic doesn’t get into the judge’s pay arrangements but questions her appointment — and why the role is necessary at all.

His letter painted the job as just another cosy featherbed for a retired judge and was doomed to fail.

“This further confirms the government has absolutely zero confidence in the Adult Parole Board and CCS’s (Community Correctional Services) capacity to adequately prepare inmates for their eventual reintegration back into the community,” he wrote.

“An appropriate course of action in such circumstances would be for politicians of both persuasions to invest further funding and resources towards various programs and courses that will be beneficial to prisoners and the community as a whole.”

Arnatovic hasn’t always let his pen do the talking. His nickname was conferred because of his rapid-fire work rate in the colourful world of kickboxing, and has nothing to do with any love of automatic weapons.

Arnautovic left school early to work in an abattoir before taking a job at the wharves and, later, the Kraft food factory. A stint running a brothel came next, along with time as an unlicensed security guard.

Former County Court Judge Felicity Hampel. Picture: County Court of Victoria

Arnautovic’s crime career began in 1980 and convictions for assault with a weapon and burglary and other offences would follow.

He would later pivot into heroin trafficking and that’s when things turned bad, leading to him spending most of his adult life behind bars.

He is recalled by older observers of the underworld as the man who nailed down the “Machinegun” moniker ahead of another contender, Charles “Mad Charlie” Hegyalji, who was shot dead outside his Caulfield house on 22 November 1998.

The Hungarian-born Hegyalji was a key figure in the amphetamine trade until his untimely death in his own front yard when he came home late one night.

Like a lot of crooks, Mad Charlie had a home security system, but the cameras weren’t working. No one was ever charged but a major suspect in Hegyali’s murder was fellow criminal Dino Dibra, himself shot dead two years after Hegyalji’s death.

Mad Charlie was a friend of the late Mark Brandon “Chopper” Read, who named his oldest son after him. This has not necessarily done Read junior any favours.