NSW: Hope around NSW alcohol laws despite Melbourne 'failure'
13 Nov 2008 6:54 PMBy Caroline Berdon
SYDNEY, Nov 13 AAP - The NSW government will implement tough new laws to combat alcohol-related violence despite similar measures being scrapped aftera controversial trial in Melbourne earlier this year.
New laws to combat alcohol-related violence were introduced to NSW parliament today.
The measures, announced by Premier Nathan Rees last month, include a freezeon 24-hour licences and a limit of 18 hours on new licences.
Patrons of 50 pubs and clubs identified as hotspots for violence face a 2amlock-out, a limit on the number of drinks they can buy and the use of plastic cups after midnight.
The laws are expected to be introduced on December 1, just one month after the Victorian government scrapped its 2am lock-out policy for Melbourne's bars.
The controversial policy was trialled earlier this year amid growing late-night drunken violence in the Victorian capital, but an evaluation of the trial by consultants KPMG is believed to have found it a failure.
This was mainly because many clubs and bars were getting exemptions from the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal to avoid locking out patrons.
A spokesman for Clubs NSW Jeremy Bath said the trial in Victoria was different because it was "blanket", affecting all pubs and clubs.
"What the government is doing here is saying if you have an unhealthily high number of assaults then you will be subject to a lockout," he said.
"We are absolutely in favour of the new laws."
The new laws in NSW also have been backed by police, doctors and the Australian Hotels Association (AHA).
NSW Police Sergeant Nigel Turney, who is licensee supervisor at Wagga Waggain southern NSW, said a 1.30am lockout that had been adopted voluntarily by pubs and clubs across the central NSW town years ago had been a success.
It had put a stop to late night pub crawls and reduced the opportunities for anti-social behaviour.
"Lockouts are designed to stop people traversing between different premises... to take away the opportunity for something to occur, whether it's a person being assaulted or property being damaged," he said.
He said people in Wagga Wagga were used to the rules.
"They know that they have to be at whatever premises they want to be at by 1.30am," he said.
Sgt Turney said the success of the NSW government plan depended on whether the public took to the new rules or whether they looked for ways around therestrictions.
He added that a lockout on its own was not enough to curb alcohol-related violence.
"You've got to have a whole heap of strategies to work together," he said. "A lockout is just one strategy."
The list of 16 venues identified as hot spots includes the Orient Hotel in the Rocks, Scruffy Murphy's on Goulburn Street, Cargo Bar on King Street Wharf, plus the Coogee Bay and Bondi hotels.
Also on the list is Iguana's nightclub in Gosford.
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