Sydney Plans To Axe 62 Booze-Free Zones So You Can Sink Piss On The Street

The City of Sydney – where, thanks to Mike Baird‘s controversial lockout laws you cannot buy a bottle of wine after 10pm – will soon let you drink on the street in pretty much the same suburbs.

According to reports, the City is looking to axe 62 public alcohol-free zones across Newtown, Surry Hills, Redfern, Waterloo, Alexandria, Erskineville, Rosebury and Darlinghurst. Missed lockout time at your local? That’s okay, because you can just sink piss right outside.

The move is intended to benefit Sydney’s homeless population by no longer forcing them into alleyways where drinking is rarely monitored. The police are against it (duh), and the NSW Liberals are with the police, but Labor councillor Linda Scott is all for the move, saying that the booze-free zones have “criminalised those sleeping rough, and often fail to prevent problems they are seeking to address.”

The other, more cynical but not necessarily wrong view, is that this is Lord Mayor Clover Moore‘s attempt to win over young voters at the upcoming council election, to which we say: ¿porque no los dos?

Of the 146 responses the City of Sydney received to its plans when they consulted on them earlier this year, 80% (78) were in support of removing the alcohol free zones. 

As a City document said: “The majority of the objections received related to the view that drinking did not necessarily always lead to anti-social behaviour and that the creation of zones in residential streets and parks is infringing on the ability of citizens to responsibly drink an alcohol beverage in a public place.”

Word.

Source: Daily Telegraph.

Photo: Ian Waldie / Getty Images.