Deadline: When Fitzroy pubs could ‘subscribe’ to gold-class police service

It was a mutually beneficial arrangement — the coppers got cheap beer, the Fitzroy pubs, allegedly, got prompt police attention when they wanted it. Welcome to Club 37.

Club 37 was mutually beneficial for the cops and licensed premises of Fitzroy.

Andrew Rule and Mark Buttler with the latest scallywag scuttlebutt.

NOT ALL POLICE CLUBS ARE BATONS

The old bricks-and-mortar Police Club, the one where future prime minister Bob Hawke copped a belting, was in McKenzie St behind the Russell St police station.

It then moved to a more obscure location near Victoria Market before police joined the rest of the population in observing drink-driving laws.

But clubs don’t need a clubhouse, just members with similar interests.

Welcome to Club 37, for a long time one of the most exclusive in the land — and so secretive the general public has never heard of it.

The origin of the name, the story goes, is that there were 37 licensed premises in the Fitzroy police precinct who “subscribed” for mutual benefit.

The coppers got discounts, sometimes up to 100 per cent. The licensed premises, allegedly, got prompt police attention when they wanted it, with discretionary interpretation of the licensing laws.

One of the best parts of Club 37 was protection from Melbourne’s “grey ghosts”.

But the great advantage was that “grey ghosts” were very respectful of Club 37 members, and never booked them for parking offences.

They could tell which vehicle was which, because the Club 37 members had (might still have) a nice round sticker with the number “37” in the centre.

Woe betide the inexperienced or zealous officer who got it wrong, such as the keen character who booked police private cars in the McKenzie St carpark in times past, only to be shot at by a detective with an air rifle from the armed robbery squad offices above.

Collingwood and Richmond police had their own variations on the local “police club” theme: one with a tiger motif and the other with a magpie. Nothing that would stand out to the public but that, of course, is the beauty of it. Like a secret handshake, really.

Of course, parking officers who tend to be very fierce and inflexible with ordinary citizens seem to have a heightened awareness of the ownership of various cars.

It was, and still might be, astonishing that certain gangster cars parked outside certain city and Carlton restaurants for hours at a time had a force field around them in which parking officers never wrote tickets.

Clearly, the officers’ supervisors understood the arrangement, whatever it was.

This reminds us of the late, great “Harry Heidelberg”, the legendary heavyweight cop who carried a deck of business cards printed with words similar to “Get Out Of Jail”, as in Monopoly.

He scribbled his signature on one such card and gave it to a Deadline reporter with instructions, if pulled over by police, to hand it to the copper.

“It only works once,” he warned.

We never tried it.

Many of the Bandidos’ biggest names have patched over to the Mongols. Picture: Ian Currie

UNEASY RIDERS

Clubs, it seems, are secretive on both sides of the law.

That is why it can be tricky trying to check the veracity of incidents in the bikie world, such as the current story that some shiny Harleys belonging to Bandidos are under new ownership.

Deadline has been told a group of Bandidos was recently called to a discreet meeting with some Mongols in country Victoria.

It ended with the Bandidos being severely outnumbered and copping a belting, before motorbikes belonging to some of them were taken.

There is speculation on the OMCG grapevine that the Harleys have since been re-registered, though details are scant because incidents of such nature are rarely reported to the police.

One fellow who isn’t reduced to pedalling a treadly, we’re told, is the lucky Bandido whose lack of punctuality meant he arrived late enough to avoid the biffo.

There is, of course, considerable history between the two gangs.

Many of the Bandidos’ biggest names have patched over to the Mongols in recent years, including the club’s el supremo.

The most powerful bikie figure in the Echuca area brought his Bandidos over to the Mongol side a few years back.

Though their numbers have dropped in the border areas, the Bandidos maintain some strength in other parts of the state like Ballarat and Geelong.

A STITCH IN TIME

Dressmakers, here is your chance to create that gangland chic the public seems to fancy.

Roberta Williams has taken to social media promising valuable exposure in return for creating something special for her daughter Dhakota’s 21st next month.

Williams says she is fast running out of time and has wheeled out the enticing prospect of contra for anyone who can produce the goods.

Dhakota Williams. Picture: Instagram

Roberta’s call-out for a seamstress.

“You will get amazing publicity ect (sic),” she promises.

We’re expecting the affair will be more restrained than the lavish christening held for then toddler Dhakota almost two decades ago.

That shindig, in Crown’s Palladium Room, was attended by a who’s who of Melbourne’s gangland, including Tony Mokbel, Andrew Veniamin and other reprobates who can no longer be named for legal reasons.

Also in the room was gangland lawyer Nicola Gobbo and a Four Corners TV crew shooting goodness knows what.

Those interested in gangland dressmakers should have a flutter on an unraced two-year-old owned and named by fierce Bulldogs supporter and Hong Kong racing identity David Price.

The colt is by Star Witness from Seamstress. Price called it Snitch In Time. It won a trial at Benalla on Monday.

A REAL BALL-BREAKER

We recently touched on the number of law-breakers who have ended up with gun damage to the family jewels — not diamonds and pearls, but what Arfer Daley would call the “orchestras”, as in orchestra stalls.

Among gangland figures badly affected, one was shot in the private parts by his rivals, another by his own mishandling of a pistol down in his strides, and a drug dealer whose package was mauled by a police dog.

Now someone else has joined the club after a confrontation at a suburban home ended with the cops being called.

This bloke, allegedly waving a hammer, put a hole in his manners before police put a hole in his groin.

The shooter concerned, we understand, is one of the more interesting characters in the blue uniform, quite possibly the only Scotch College boy to win a Grand National as a jumping jockey before joining “the job”.

Not the sort to be threatening with a hammer.

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The Titanic on Nelson Place in Williamstown.

BAD TRIP FOR TITANIC

Planting a big dope crop above a disused Titanic-themed restaurant must have seemed like a work of criminal genius at the time.

The Titanic, on Nelson Place in Williamstown, had been closed for some time and the green thumbs who put in the hours would have had high hopes for a big payday from their 237 cannabis plants.

What could go wrong?

How about a visit from a real estate agent who went straight to the local cops operating out of a station just up the street.

Sgt Glen Close said investigators were looking for a male suspect.

Titanic restaurant management say they knew nothing about the scuttled project.

Furthermore, they do not find jokes about iceberg lettuce amusing.

A real estate agent stumbled upon the crop. Picture: titanic.com.au

THE DREYFUS AFFAIR: LAWMAN DEFENDS RECORD

The man odds-on to be Australia’s next top lawman has pleaded mitigating circumstances over his modest swimming exploits.

Concerned representatives of Shadow Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus contacted Deadline after our special investigation last week into his performance in a bay swim off Aspendale, in which we found that a man of identical appearance to the towering political figure finished near the tail of the field.

Official spokesman Stephen Spencer made representations that Mr Dreyfus pleaded guilty to charges of slow swimming but with mitigating circumstances: to wit, his preparation had been interrupted when he got only one hour of sleep during a marathon parliamentary debate of the Religious Discrimination Bill. Case closed.