Despite being one of the larger and more well-known hospitality companies in the country, Justin Hemmes‘ outfit Merivale Group has been pretty silent on the issue of the Sydney lockout laws, even though they’ve no doubt felt the same sting in their venues as other have.
As part of the current lockout reviews conducted by Ian Callinan, Merivale has slipped in a submission which slams the lockouts impact on their business and Sydney nightlife, saying that Sydney is “regulating itself into oblivion.”
The company holds a number of venues in the CBD lockout zone, including The Ivy, Establishment, CBD Hotel and Slip Inn. Considering how much of a ghost town the CBD is after dark, there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind they’d be hit hard.
Their submission, which can be read HERE, lays out their concerns. Like many businesses in the hospitality sector, they argue that they support broad, commonsense measures to combat alcohol-related violence. However, they believe the brunt of the lockout laws are too harsh and restrictive, and damaging to both business and culture.
They point specifically to how the laws have resulted in international embarrassment:
Sydney’s reputation as an international dining and hospitality destination is being impacted by reports from tourists and celebrities of our ‘nanny state’ laws. For example, Merivale venues have had to refuse entry to Grammy Award-winning artists (Madonna, Prince, Drake, Marilyn Manson, Ed Sheeran and the Smashing Pumpkins)and sporting heroes (James Harden, playing members of the Arsenal and Chelsea Football Clubs and British Lions Rugby team), generating negative social media comments.
Interestingly – or maybe not – Merivale supports the 10pm restriction on liquor takeaway sales, citing the fact that the highly publicised ‘coward punch’ killings of Thomas Kelly and Daniel Christie occurred as a result of the assailants ‘pre-loading’. Obviously hospitality companies like that restriction because it means more drinking in their establishments too.
They also confirmed that they are not opposed to a periodic liquor license fee scheme in principle, they oppose the current on the grounds that “it fails to appropriately differentiate between small and large venues or the severity of an offence that triggers the scheme.”
So there you go. Another big hospitality business which isn’t keen on the lockouts. Whether you’re swayed by that angle or not – opposition from industry is mounting.
Source: Business Insider.
Photo: Getty Images / Don Arnold.
