It's time for Sydney to look past the lock-out laws

COMMENT

Sydney. Home of the Harbour Bridge and Racing NSW's greatest billboard. Also my home for the past 40 years.

When I was a kid, it was all about Saturday night. Start with a beer on the train before pulling into Kings Cross Station, young, naive and harmless. Navigate the mess that was (and is) Darlinghurst Road with its gross strip clubs, and into the Bourbon for a full breakfast at 9pm. Then out!

First stop was Bottoms Up Bar for vodka and fruit juice in a tall glass followed by The Cauldron if Charles let me in. Then Rhino Bar for a toasted cheese sandwich, and a game of backgammon in Barons with the 60-year-old bartender.

Then maybe over to Oxford Street for the Daily Planet, Middle Bar, Freezer and Gilligan's until the sun came up and you would sleep on the train ride home. We had choice, food, music, diversity, cocktails and dancing. Oxford Street, Kings Cross, the CBD and even good ol' North Sydney were alive.

The media, council and Keep Sydney Open party have all discussed the death of Kings Cross and negative impact of lock-out laws on the night time economy. However, I think that horse bolted long before the lock-out laws were implemented. The O'Farrell government's rushed laws just quickened the process.

The issue we face now is the corporate pub group and its complete disconnect from the local community. The kind of pub groups hiding pokies behind the spin of food, chefs, drinks collaborations and social media's Instachefs.

Refurbishing a pub to make it feel warm and worn requires more effort than a few pieces of distressed wood and retro Chinese food from an open kitchen. It requires more than a few "craft" beers brewed by multinational companies and more than a few "likes" for a lunch special on Instagram.

You also have to ask why the CBD is not allowed to operate as a 24-hour entertainment destination yet the surrounding suburbs are. Perhaps it's because many of Sydney's most profitable pubs weren't affected by lock-out laws and benefit from increased pokie revenue due to the city's restrictions.

I find customers and communities want the old Cheers-style bar where everybody knows your name and style of service. Where the person who serves you and cooks for you also owns the venue and is proud of it. I believe people want real social engagement, not big business.

There are plenty of good folk in the local hospitality industry already doing good things. Sydney's entrepreneurial spirit should be nurtured through honourable governance and collaboration. It creates our cultural identity.

Moving into the next decade, we need to look past the lock-out laws and recalibrate Sydney into a city of art, music, dance, culture, food, wine, boutique beers and cocktails. Supporting venues that care about the community, not pokies, is a good place to start.

Martin O'Sullivan is the senior consultant to Macro Micro and former president of the Small Bar Association and owner of Grasshopper in the CBD.