City of Waverley Mayor Sally Betts has blamed local police and the council for the recent cancellation of Sydney New Year’s Eve staple Shore Thing. Cr Betts says she is “incredibly nervous” about the impact that the cancellation of the festival will have on drunken behaviour in the area on NYE.
The mayor said police did not support a council-run event at Bondi Pavilion, but that she would welcome another organised event in the area. While in their official statement, Shore Thing organisers cited “lengthy discussions with Council and other stakeholders” as their reason for cancelling the popular event.
“I’m really disappointed and very worried about it,” Cr Betts told the Wentworth Courier. “The police and council have put too many regulations on the organisers. It has got to a tipping point and they’ve said no.” Cr Betts’ comments come shortly after last weekend’s one-punch incident on Campbell Pde.
According to Cr Betts, without an event, and an accompanying security presence and police patrol, residents can expect more, not less, antisocial behaviour occurring on Bondi Beach.
“I’m concerned because our rangers cannot be [on Bondi Beach] all night… we’ll do what we can but they aren’t experienced enough,” she added. “The difficulty is, this will fall back on police and we don’t know if they will have sufficient people to patrol the whole park area.”
Eastern Suburbs Local Area Command Acting Inspector Adam Pearce said his colleagues were meeting with Council again this week. “I wouldn’t like to pre-empt that conversation (but) we always staff adequately for NYE,” he told the Courier.
Following the event’s cancellation, Bondi Beach Precinct convener Lenore Kulakauskas called the news “very, very exciting” and said she was looking forward to the first time in 20 years without a NYE event at Bondi. “This year there will be no fencing on our beach and we’ll be able to walk around on NYE and enjoy ourselves,” she said.
But Cr Betts is adamant, “The event has been fantastic — it’s kept the streets of Bondi clean,” adding, “We’ve had security all the way up to Dover Heights and down to Bronte over Christmas, which was funded by this event.”
Cr Betts’ comments recall similar sentiments expressed by Jon Perring, owner of Melbourne venue The Tote, back in January.
Perring, who was openly critical of a NYE licensing freeze imposed by the Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation, claimed an illegal NYE 2013 dance party that trashed North Fitzroy’s Edinburgh Gardens was the result of punters having nowhere to go where there would be “crowd controllers or RSA-accredited staff” to keep the area safe.
