Cheers for Hong Kong, jeers for Sydney: a drinker’s lament for city’s nightlife
‘People could nonchalantly walk across the street from one venue to another, carry a drink from the previous venue in a glass in hand,’ writes businessman of Hong Kong, contrasting it with ‘ghost town’ Sydney, in article that’s gone viral this week
In the 8,000-word article, leading Australian entrepreneur Matt Barrie says the lockout laws introduced by “an Orwellian state government led by evangelical Christians” in response to alcohol-related violence have had such an impact that “on Saturday nights tumbleweeds blow across the main entertainment precincts for Sydney - Kings Cross, Darlinghurst and Oxford Street”.
Barrie cites a litany of grim statistics to show the damage the laws have inflicted on the city’s nightlife sector since 2012: 42 bars, clubs and small businesses in Kings Cross alone have closed, and there’s been an 84 per cent reduction in foot traffic in the area.
In the article, headlined “Would the last person in Sydney please turn the lights out?”, Barrie says it’s now easier to get a beer in Pyongyang, North Korea, than it is in Sydney.
After describing his astonishment at seeing people drinking beer from glasses outside a pub in London, something that would result in drinkers being “crash tackled by three bouncers and fined” in Sydney, Barrie then turns to Hong Kong.