Licensing Killed The Pub Rock Star

It's just a matter of time for the Tote. Image: Sweded

In news that live music fans have greeted with almost unanimous feelings of anger and woe, iconic Melbourne rock pub the Tote Hotel announced today that it will be closing permanently this Sunday, 17 January.

Hotel nominee Bruce Milne has circulated a press release in which he claims that rising costs and trading restrictions associated with liquor licensing requirements have made it impossible for him to trade profitably.

“I can’t afford the new “high risk” fees they have imposed. I can’t afford to keep fighting them at VCAT. I can’t renegotiate a lease in this environment,” Milne said.

Community and media pressure have made the Victorian state government declare war on what is generally called “alcohol-fuelled violence”. In 2008, it trialled a lockout of patrons from licensed venues after 2am, which was discontinued after it had little appreciable effect on violent episodes. Now the latest front in this war is through liquor licensing.

Three new Victorian state liquor licence categories came into force on 1 January this year: “late night”, “restaurant and cafe” and “major event”. The late night category redefines ‘ordinary’ service of alcohol as finishing at 11pm; all “general” and “on-premises” licences that were authorised to trade until 1am or later have automatically rolled over to this new category.

There is also a new fee structure that charges venues a base fee, plus extra “risk fees” for trading after 11pm and for violating rules on service to minors, intoxicated persons or drunk and disorderly persons. There are also extra fees calculated on the basis of venue capacity. The licence is conditional on having two security staff present at all times, no matter how many patrons are in the venue. Staff must be hired at a minimum of $40 per hour for a minimum of four hours each.

At one stage the Tote traded until 3am but in 2009 reduced its hours to close at 1am. Its stated capacity is 320 patrons in the band room and 100 in the upstairs Cobra Bar. But it’s the idea that late trading automatically constitutes “high risk” of alcohol-fuelled violence that makes Milne – and many Tote patrons – bristle.

Milne told community radio station Triple R FM this afternoon that when he brought up the Tote’s clean compliance record with liquor licensing authorities, officials responded that government research conclusively linked late-trading licensed venues with violence, so they refused to distinguish between large nightclubs and small live music venues that happen to share opening hours.

The Enthusiast doesn’t doubt that venues such as the Tote are precious because they sustain a varied live music culture. But we do respectfully observe that an important part of Australian live music culture is the sense that it’s continually under threat by one bureaucratic, authoritarian force or another… people who “don’t care about music”.

Like any business, live music venues are prone to go under when they’re no longer able to make money, but there’s a certain feeling in the live music scene that no venue ought ever to close – especially not a venue that hosts decades of accumulated memories. There’s a nostalgia for lost rock pubs that persists long after the physical spaces themselves have been turned to other uses.

During the reign of Joh Bjelke-Petersen in Queensland, merely congregating in large enough numbers to listen to live music was an illegal – and politically subversive – act. More recently, venue owners have become anti-music bogeymen, too – when a venue changes hands, music fans fear – sometimes, correctly – that corporate imperatives will steamroll the low-margin business of hosting live musicians.

Live venues have suffered from noise restrictions imposed by local councils in response to complaints by local residents. Municipal councils have also been blamed for venue closures due to expensive or time-consuming renovations to meet planning requirements for their often historic buildings. Even state governments are in the firing line for not changing the relevant legislation to make matters easier for the operators of live music venues.

“We may have people claiming that Melbourne is the live music capital of Australia, but we’ve got an entrenched government that has never done anything to recognise it,” Bruce Milne told Triple R. “They’ve never done a single thing, and no-one has questioned them about it.”

Fans of the Tote plan to protest its closure this Sunday, 17 January, from 6pm. Local music studio ON/OFF, which is rallying would-be protesters on Facebook, says: “We need as many people to recognise that this law is causing the closure of a Melbourne icon and it is not serving the intention of the law, nor the best interests of our city’s cultural heritage.”

Related stories:

1. A Star Wars Fan Reviews Star Trek JJ Abrams gives George Lucas a lesson in the art...
2. BDO Drops Homophobic Dancehall Star Beenie Man Gay rights groups spring into action to get violently homophobic...
3. Obits Record New Life In Rock All of Rick Froberg's projects seem to break up exactly...
4. Triple M Does Not Rock Once Australia's go-to rock radio station, Triple M has just...
5. Review: Rock N Roll Nerd Even if Tim Minchin's pithy little tunes and sub-Brand aesthetic...