I have never known when to go home. I used to think it was when I either: ran out of money, threw up, or if something particularly unsettling happened. That was until one night in Newcastle when this theory was blown out of my scotch and water… when I ran out of money at The Grand, spewed in the loos, caused a punch-up, broke a heel and fell down the stairs (front ways), then hobbled a few hundred metres in torrential rain to the bus stop. I waited there for the bus for five minutes before toddling back up to the pub, to continue to have a good time. As I said - I have never known when to go home.

Four years of living in Perth ended in a harangue of disapproval as pub door after pub door was shut in my face. My mates surely tired of my raving of the virtue of Newcastle and my legendary announcements about how one could “drink all night” there, told in a whimsical almost mythical manner not unlike stories from the Dreamtime. So you can imagine my horror when on the eve of my return to Newcastle the accelerating alcohol related violence in the city finally hit the newsstands. Apparently my hometown has one of the highest rates of alcohol related street violence in NSW.

I was heading east along the Nullarbor just this side of the Mundrabilla Roadhouse when I first heard the news of an “intervention”. I slammed on the brakes… was it too late to turn back?

We have recently passed the first anniversary of the “intervention”. This by the way sounds quite serious; like we are not worthy… as if we should all be on illicit drugs or something. Not humble human beings with a fondness for the odd alcoholic beverage who are now denied a tequila shot on a regular basis. And after one year, halleluiah, there looks to be a drop in alcohol related biffs in the city as all the dropkicks have moved 3.5 kilometres west… to Hamilton (and I appear to have joined them). So the decrease is actually thanks to the dwindling numbers of people heading into the inner city… but thanks David “teetotalling ass-wipe” Armati and the now abolished “Liquor Administration Board” for attempting to cripple our local pubs and clubs. Oh and the cops are having fun with this too. While my local pub, Finnegan’s (110 metres away), is still going OK, The Jolly Roger my true yocal (100 metres as the crow flies), was closed down recently… by the police.

Hamilton is not part of the “intervention” but it too is still copping it from the cops. We arrived at the Exchange at midnight Saturday night to find the place in darkness. Rumour has it that the police shut it down last week as they were “over capacity”. Not content with mauling doughnuts it would seem they entered the establishment, calculators in hands, well and truly substantiating their status as the “Fun Police”. Picturing the police sifting through the place counting heads is almost as absurd as the (serious) suggestion they breathalyse us in the pubs before we are allowed service at the bar.

We walked for one kilometre back up Beaumont Street to the Northern Star, Kent, and Junction  Hotel… pub, after pub, after pub… we were refused entry by the bouncers at every door as (amazingly) every pub on Beaumont Street was full to capacity that night. This is seriously a crock of shit. We all know that those buffoons we call bouncers can’t count let alone pronounce the word “capacity”. The last pub however did let us in, but the Hamilton Station Hotel appears to be where all the ugly people who cant sing congregate on a Saturday night for karaoke. That soon closed too leaving us on the street and out of desperation attempting entry to the G Bar. But it was nighty night for Pricilla and the other queens, leaving the four of us high and dry with nowhere to go. 

Now the obvious problem with the “intervention” is that people drink harder and faster when the bar shuts early. And by kicking everyone out at the same time, it makes it difficult to get a cab and its times like these when certain frustrated assholes fraternise with the rest of us and fights are caused. The massive international irony here is that a couple of years ago they relaxed the strict Archaic pub licensing in England (initially initiated in a Christian attempt to control the Pagans no doubt) from the very strict 11pm close, for these very reasons i.e. violence because people drank faster and then were kicked out on the street en masse, leading to fisty cuffs aplenty. And as horrific as the 11pm close in England was back then, at least you could still go clubbing if you weren’t lucky enough to locate a lock-in.

But where does this all leave Wendy post 3am in Newie?

Well I know what I was doing post 3am in Spain last August and the party there had not even warmed up until 1am. Why can’t we look to the Spaniards and find answers to our alcohol related violence? Hell the matadors may be cruel but Spanish men, like Australian men, also have a larrikin streak but without the bullish behaviour. How else would over 30,000 people (mostly men peppered with idiotic female Aussie travellers) congregate in a narrow street to pelt each other with roma tomatoes without causing a massive brawl? They appear to piss it up and party just as hard as we do but just without the desire to punch someone’s lights out at the end of the night (or middle of the next morning in their case). Maybe our boys just need to let off steam. Maybe we could hold “La Grapes” at the end of the Hunter grape harvest, up Darby Street or Beaumont even.

It’s too easy in this country to simply turn the beer off at the tap. 2% of the Australian population are problem gamblers and Id be willing to put money on the fact that most of the remaining  20+ million do not want to ban pokies in pubs (whoops WA excluded of course). And there were 1463 road fatalities in Australia last year, so obviously we need to ban all cars on the road and insist everyone should get on their bikes. And how about those horrific shark attacks in February… we seriously need to look at closing ALL beaches and put an end to swimming in the ocean in Oz altogether.

So I am not pro-violence (or pro-alcoholism) I am simply pro-choice. And as an example of this I have chosen not to watch “Underbelly - a tale of two cities” because I’m not comfortable with the violence. And although the drunken (yet sobering) violence depicted in the series most definitely could not possibly in anyone’s wildest of wildest dreams glamorise violent behaviour in Australian society (!)… I would be most disturbed if the naysayers and other censorship shitheads rallied unreasonably and the program was removed from our TV screens.

Closing the pubs early simply takes away one more of our dwindling freedoms in this country, it in no way addresses or seriously attempts to solve the problem of alcohol related violence in Newie. And I am predicting that if the liquor licensing in inner Newcastle is not relaxed soon authorities may just start noticing an ubiquitous uprising, quite a revealing revolt, as non violent individuals (like myself) get more and more pissed off. In fact the report in Saturday’s Herald that claimed Albert “burn-your-bridges” Gardener (Director of Liquor, Gaming and Racing) “urged the hotel industry not to rely on alcohol for profits”… makes me really want to hit someone. That or get another drink.

The following are six ways to prevent Wendy becoming violent when the pub closes at 2.30am. Feel free to contribute your own “6 step plan” for Wendy by leaving a comment.

1) Bring in the lock-in. There is nothing comparable to the feeling of being locked in a pub.

2) Get her really pissed and she will no longer construct sentences. If she realises that the pub is actually shut she won’t be able to question it.

3) Tell her Jude Law says “hi” and will be waiting in bed when she gets home.

4) Tell her a Jude Law look-a-like says “hi” and will be waiting in bed when she gets home.

5) Garnish her drink with rohipnol

6) Change all the clocks and tell her it’s really 5am