Sydney's Alcohol Policy

Having always lived in a country where the drinking age is 21, the drinking environment and culture in Australia was noticeably different as soon as I stepped onto the plane in Los Angeles. The legal age to purchase and consume alcoholic beverages here, like much of the world, is 18. This, was not news to me, however upon entering a local bar in Sydney a large sign declaring their fairly new law caught my eye. It gave very specific instructions about when bartenders could serve drinks throughout the night and how many. No more than four drinks or any kind of shot can be served after midnight and no more than two drinks can be sold to a customer after 2am. This new policy has the intention of decreasing alcohol related violence and the number of people going home too intoxicated. It was first enforced in July 2014 following a fatal assault of a teenager outside of a bar (Nicholls, 2014). I have never seen such specific serving laws anywhere in the United States and was very curious about how effective these are and if they hurt the business that must enforce them.

I decided to visit a local club in the city and interviewed one of its bouncers. When I asked if he had noticed any difference in the amount of alcohol related violence as a result of the policy, he was very adamant in his statement that nothing much has changed. He explained that, in his opinion, the security should be good enough to recognize when someone is too intoxicated or causing issues and remove them before anything actually happens. Therefore, the bouncers would already be taking care of the issues that the policy is intended to prevent. However, he did mention that smaller bars that do not have security most likely benefit from it. In terms of financial effects, he claimed that the policy has negatively impacted the overall revenue of the club due to the significant limit on how much customers can buy during the night. Since they are open until 3am on the weekends, the law effects three hours of each night’s earnings. Smaller bars, however, usually close earlier, and are therefore not impacted as significantly money wise.

I found the bouncer’s statement very interesting. It was clearly biased because of the type of bar that he worked at and his job, but was overall logical. With the drinking age being lower here than it is in the United States, there are significantly more people that are going out and drinking at night. Age, however I feel does not play as much into bar violence and the development of potentially dangerous situations as much as the quantity of alcohol consumed. Our higher drinking age is, in part, to decrease the number of people drinking, especially those who are younger and may not be mature enough to drink safely. Sydney’s new law, however, limits the amount of alcohol that anyone in general can consume, aiming to directly intervene and prevent the potential negative results of drinking too much and going home overly intoxicated. Living in a college town, there have been numerous nights that I have witnessed people that are too drunk walking home alone at night and many fights breaking out as the bars close. If we had laws similar to this, many of these dangerous situations could potentially be prevented as people begin to sober up at the end of the night as opposed to become even more intoxicated. I think that even though bars complain of the financial impact of the law, it could potentially prevent serious legal issues that would result from alcohol related incidents if customers are drinking too much during the night. Although Sydney’s alcohol policy most likely benefits the smaller bars more and could be adjusted depending on the individual place, I think that it is on the right track in trying to help ensure the safety of everyone.

Marissa Post

Works Cited

Nicholls, S. (2014). No shots after midnight: new bans on Sydney alcohol service. The

Sydney morning Harald. Retrieved from http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/no-shots-after-midnight-new-bans-on-sydney-alcohol-service-20140528-393vh.html