City bars 'on notice' after brawl

Kate Lahey and Reko Rennie
Source: Melbourne Age

MELBOURNE'S central business district remains a trouble spot for drunken violence and venue operators in the city should consider themselves on notice, Premier John Brumby says.

Mr Brumby made the comments yesterday as Southbank's Queensbridge Hotel released closed circuit camera footage of a brawl involving dozens of patrons on the weekend.
CCTV: QBH nightclub brawl

CCTV security video showing brawl outside QBH nightclub in Melbourne. NO AUDIO.

Staff, including at least four security guards, were attacked after a woman was asked to leave because she was smoking inside, about 1.30am on Sunday morning.

The nightclub's owner and operations manager for the Australian Leisure and Hospitality Group, Bruce Mathieson, yesterday admitted the hotel was seen as a "beacon for violence" and that violence in his venues across Australia was getting worse.

ALH Group runs 270 venues.

"It happens on a weekly basis and it does seem to get worse," Mr Mathieson told Radio 3AW.

Mr Brumby said that despite additional powers given to the Director of Liquor Licensing, safety in the city remained a concern.

"We've obviously had and still have an issue in relation to the CBD and I can't say it enough, all of these venues are on notice," Mr Brumby said. "We want people to enjoy themselves but we don't want repeats of the sort of incident we saw on the weekend."

Police will compile a report on the brawl, which they say included glass being used as a weapon, for Liquor Licensing Director Sue McLellan to consider.

Ms McLellan has the power to revoke or suspend a licence, or to vary it so glass is not used after a certain hour. She said yesterday she would await the report before making any decision.

Mr Brumby said the club might not have complied with its licence conditions to serve alcohol responsibly. "I wasn't there at the weekend but it would appear obviously that there were too many people who were too drunk," he said.

Mr Mathieson said the outbreak was not alcohol- "It's not an alcohol-fuelled incident, it's just something that escalated out of an incident, out of a young girl smoking internally and it just escalated and was shut down very, very quickly," Mr Mathieson said.

"We actually took the initiative to shut the venue and that was obviously a big decision."

Mr Mathieson said management and staff would review the weekend attack.

"We need to be responsible for what happens to our venue. I'm certainly aware that Queensbridge (Hotel) is virtually seen as the beacon for violence in the city. That's something we need to accept and we can only take and review and continually assess how we operate the venue," he said.

He said banning glass after 11pm would not solve the problem.



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