Hookup, Find Sex or Meet Someone Hot Now
Reset Password
Reset Link Sent
Hookup, Find Sex or Meet Someone Hot Now
| Blogs > rm_mazandbren > The Complaisant Husband |
Melee Points
|
Melee Points Many years ago, most Australians would have been introduced to the alcohol culture through the traditional sharing of a beer (or shandy) with their parents. From there it was likely that the would graduate further by ‘breaking the law’ and sneaking into the pubs and clubs while , but with the clear consequence that being a sixteen or seventeen year old smart arse in a pub full of grown men would be an invitation to a physical encounter outside, more than likely followed by a quick trip down to the cop shop until your parents came to collect you. It may seem like something of a romanticisation of the past, but it seems pretty obvious that what this taught the young who would soon be adults was what was, and what was not, acceptable drinking behaviour. Then along came a group of journalists with nothing better to do. First they went after the pubs and clubs that were actively corrupting our innocent youth by tempting them into<b> illicit </font></b>acts. The media push hit a nerve with concerned parents and concerned politicians and before you knew what was happening there was a steady growth in the punishments handed out to establishments, staff, patrons and the themselves. Not to be left out, the medical community jumped onboard and began a campaign about the effects of alcohol on growing bodies and banging the drum to say that parents who really loved their would not give them alcohol. So that rite of passage quickly disappeared from many homes. But this is a society in which alcohol plays an important role in social gatherings. To be an adult in this country, especially in certain sections of the culture, is to knock back a few drinks with your mates. Alcohol is still a feature of the life of many teens; but instead of learning a culture of acceptable drinking habits in slow degrees, now they learn it through peer pressure where the goal is to drink as much as possible. Their behaviour and consumption is not moderated by the examples of adults around them- they learn in a vacuum. So it should come as no surprise that when they are old enough to get into the clubs and pubs they have no idea of how to behave, how to moderate their consumption or how alcohol affects them. Yet the spiralling violence in our entertainment precincts<b> illicit </font></b>nothing but gasps of dismay and bewilderment and the response has invariably been more attempts at control and limitation. It does not take Einstein to realise that the controls and limitations imposed in the last two decades are precisely responsible for where we are now. The problem in Perth is compounded by a few more factors that probably don’t occur anywhere else. Firstly, our nightclub zones are being steadily squeezed into a single zone. The NIMBY brigade has been out and about for two decades closing down pubs and clubs in the suburbs with endless complaints about noise, behaviour, etc. It always surprises me that people move into these areas knowing that that venue is there, and then spend the next few years trying to get rid of it. The end result has been that the Northbridge area has become saturated with patrons. On top of this, the police suggestion that the crowds on the footpaths be thinned out by closing the roads was roundly criticised by restaurateurs and cafe owners convinced that the drop off in their business was caused by this, not the fact that people had the perception that going to a cafe or restaurant in Northbridge was something of a death wish. The same people add to the congestion by putting out a gaggle of tables on the footpaths. Another factor was the decision to kick the smokers out onto the street. Run all the campaigns you want to, but smoking will always be perceived as cool. It is an act of rebellion. So when the smokers head out for their next coffin nail, the hangers on will go with them. Suddenly the one or two smokers will become a crowd of inebriated loiterers, with a small group seeking the opportunity to impress their peers. All it takes is one tanked-up boofhead trying to impress for things to degenerate into a street melee. Is it possible to undo the damage? No. None of these actions could really be argued against for the simple reason that they actually make sense. Smoking is bad and secondary smoking is bad so the idea of banning cigarette smoking from nightclubs and pubs makes sense. Similarly, alcohol does negatively impact ’s health to a far greater degree than adults so putting measures in place to limit drinking also makes sense. The problem is not that they don’t make sense but that they make sense on a very limited basis and the ancillary consequences were simply not taken into account, if they occurred to anyone at all. You simply cannot argue that allowing smokers back inside to ease the pressures that lead to violence is a good idea because there is a whole army of people who will paint you as a monster for exposing people to tobacco. You can’t argue against strictly enforcing alcohol laws in regard to juveniles because there is another army of people who will paint you as a monster for trying to harm the development of innocent youth. However, given the mistakes of the past, it might be useful to look at some of the suggestions being made to fix the current problem a little more closely before accepting them. The problem with regulation is that it invariably leads to more regulation to fix the problems caused by the regulations in the first place. Someone, somewhere, thought that it would be a good idea to regulate a minimum drinking age- now we have regulations on top of regulations trying to ensure that the first regulation works. Perhaps instead of adding on another layer of regulation, we might step back a bit and try a few structural adjustments. The suggestion by the WA police that the streets in and around Northbridge be closed is a good example of this. Another might be to designate a few more areas for entertainment precincts- the current alternatives of Subiaco, Claremont and Fremantle are probably even more crowded than Northbridge. An area like the Gosnells CBD has few residents and plenty of spaces that could be converted into pubs and nightclubs. Though hardly fashionable at the moment, it should be noted that for much of their history Northbridge and even Subiaco were working class suburbs.  In truth is there no beauty? I am not in love; but i am open to persuasion. |
Become a member to create a blog
