Queensland Locked Out
Reclaim Your Nightlife – Shut Down the Lock Down
Posts tagged Danny Blair
Shutout Plan Protest
Mar 4th
An article today in City News (Direct Link):
BRISBANE: Inner-city revellers and licensees are mobilising to fight for their right to party.
The Queensland Police Union’s push to shut inner-city licensed venues at 2am spawned the citizens lobby group Queensland Locked Out, which will protest outside Parliament on Thursday, March 11.
Organiser Zach Salar said he believed the shutdown would be an intrusion of civil liberties, reduce the vitality of the live music scene, result in the loss of hospitality jobs and tarnish Brisbane’s reputation as an entertainment hub.
Instead, he said group supporters advocate harsher penalties against anti-social and aggressive behaviour, increased police presence and security, an introduction of ID scanners at venues and chill-out areas in entertainment districts.
“We’re expecting 1500 at the moment,” Mr Salar said. “We want about 2000 to 3000 at the protest and we’re expecting a big push in the promotion of things over this week by the people.”
The rally has received support from Fortitude Valley bar owners Claudia Bordini of Kaliber and Andrew Ferguson of alloneword.
Ms Bordini said the 2am closure proposal would place more responsibility on licensees and less on an individual patron’s behaviour and would result in job losses.
“One-third of my staff are going to be out of a job,” she said.
Mr Ferguson said he lived in Melbourne when the Victorian Government tried to institute a lockout a couple of years ago and believes a similar protest contributed to a defeat of the proposed motion.
Valley Liquor Accord chairman Danny Blair said his group, comprising Valley licensees, police, Brisbane City Council, the Fortitude Valley Chamber of Commerce and the Queensland Taxi Council, had no association with the protest.
What do you think? Visit http://www.city-news.com.au and leave your comments.
Brisbane nightclubs to introduce fingerprint scanning
Nov 24th
An article in relation to the ID scanners being introduced at some of the venues. Through these systems, troublemakers can be identified and banned from the venues. Please, participate in the comments of the article on the courier mail website. Direct Link Here
PATRONS at some of Brisbane’s top nightspots will be forced to have their fingerprints scanned before entering clubs.
Five venues in the Fortitude Valley precinct will be introducing new fingerprinting scanning systems by the end of February in a bid to curb alcohol-fuelled violence.
Valley Liquor Accord chairman Danny Blair said it was a “step in the right direction” to providing safer venues.
“We’re hoping we will have fingerprint scanning up and running in The Family nightclub in the next month. And if it’s successful in reducing alcohol-related violence there then we’ll look at introducing it in other venues,” Mr Blair said.
“By the end of February next year we hope all our venues will have fingerprint ID scanners.”
Before entry, patrons will have their ID scanned, picture taken and right index finger scanned for a fingerprint.
Mr Blair said the technology would be rolled out at Katarzyna Group venues including Cloudland, The Family, Empire Hotel, Press Club and Birdie Num Nums.
“If they (patrons) don’t behave it obviously gives us the ability to bar them from the premises. It will enable us to bar them from all of our venues.”
Options Tavern at Helensvale on the Gold Coast is among the few Queensland venues already using the technology.
But civil libertarian Terry O’Gorman said fingerprinting raised privacy concerns.
“The information won’t be secure because there’s no privacy laws that makes them (hotels) store it securely,” he said.
Queensland Hotels Association chief executive Justin O’Connor said the fingerprint scanning was designed to “deter anti-social behaviour” and make it simple for patrons to revisit the same venue.
“The rationale for taking the fingerprint scan and turning it into digital memory is to allow for a future visit to be done on the basis of a fingerprint scan,” he said.
“You don’t have to keep surrendering your ID to access the premises.”
The information can be stored for about 28 days.