New South Wales‘ Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority might not have that much stuff going on rn, considering everything about Sydney‘s nightlife and partying culture has completely died changed in the past year.
But most recently, they made the decision to completely ban Michael Amante, former owner of Kings Cross stripclub and son of Kings Cross ‘identity’ Frank “Ashtray” Amante, from ever running a licensed premises ever again.
You might remember the massive venue drug busts that occurred in Kings Cross at the end of 2015 – Showgirls, Bada Bing and Dreamgirls were all raided, and the two latter venues had to shut their doors shortly after.
The raids also led to three charges of cocaine supply at Dreamgirls; it had to surrender its licence, and was put up for sale early in 2016.
And it turns out that Amante might have actually made matters worse for himself – when he faced a life ban, he decided to write a personal letter to the ILGA, which he said was an attempt to tell the authority board “a little bit about [him]self and try to defend [him]self”, and to explain “[his] criminal history, which sounds terrible but is no where [sic] near as bad as it sounds”.
Good idea? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPE.
Here’s some of the personal things in the aforementioned letter, all of which should’ve stayed very well hidden in deep, deep crevasses of Amante‘s brain, and not willingly written down in a letter to a governmental licensing board. Or anyone, really.
DRINK DRIVING / LYING TO POLICE
Amante has multiple drink driving charges from 20 years ago, one high range:
“The one in 2002 goes with a string of charges and the only reason I lied to the police about my identity was because I had a good job at Qantas which I was afraid of loosing [sic].”
ILLEGAL FIREARMS
Amante spent a couple of months behind bars in 2011, and has been convicted of firing a firearm in or near a public place, and possessing an unauthorised firearm.
“It was an air rifle not an AK 47, I shot my wife in the backside with it from two metres away while she was wearing jeans and all she did was go ‘ahhhhh’.”
His unauthorised firearm was shot in the window of a Korean BBQ restaurant in Potts Point.
“If you really want to know the truth, it wasn’t even me who shot the damn thing off my verandah accidentally into the toilet window of a Korean BBQ restaurant that was adjacent to our block of flats in Potts Point.It was a girlfriend of my wife’s who wanted to have a go. Neither [sic] the less I took the blame and spent 55 days over Christmas and New Years and my sons birthday in Silverwater correctional centre (maximum security).”
DREAMGIRLS’ LIQUOR LICENSE BREACHES
Amante admits in the letter that his club had a pretty poor record of breaching liquor licensing laws, including one night where:
“Four girls forgot to put their undies back on after finishing their stage show.”
DRUGS, BOTH AT DREAMGIRLS AND HIS OWN POSSESSION
“I’m not sure what led to the intel that we were some big cocaine supplying club that required 45 armed swat-like police officers to raid the club on the 19th Dec but we weren’t.
Perhaps me getting caught with 8.6 grams of cocaine on November 2015 triggered something I’m not sure.”
He admits that the raids uncovered two female employees of the club with cocaine, one of which was charged with supply, but says that it should kinda be expected:
“We are a strip club in Kings Cross, these girls aren’t secretarys [sic] or librarians and our customers are from all walks of life, so I think it will be foolish to not assume that some drugs went on.”
Despite his very interesting letter being so eloquent (and extremely admissible in a court of law), the ILGA decided to follow through with banning Mr. Amante from ever holding a liquor license or running a licensed premises ever again.
Source: The Age.
Photo: Twitter / 7 News.
