Council unsheaths a rubber sword in its war against the drinking classes

OPINION

by Michael Gormly
City Councillors are going to become very unpopular with the drinking classes if they follow the advice of research they commissioned which, unsurprisingly, supports their pre-existing agenda in key areas.

The reports insist the best way to reduce alcohol-related harm around Kings Cross and Oxford Street is to close pubs early, reduce their number and make booze more expensive.

But while our ageing Councillors have a new weapon to wield in their crusade, the studies crucially fail to establish any objective evidence for a ‘saturation point’ of alcohol outlets, a central plank in the war against Kings Cross and Oxford Street, styled lately as a “rescue plan”.

Establishing this ‘saturation point’ was a key aim of Council’s research after an embarrassing loss in the Land and Environment Court in 2006. Council used the concept in its attempt to block approval for Springfields Bar and Restaurant in Kings Cross. But the judgement rejected the argument, saying “no substantive evidence was presented… so as to allow any objective assessment.”

Despite claims that it would induce alcohol-fuelled mayhem, Springfields then opened and stayed virtually empty until it closed. The saturation-point theorists turned out to be dead wrong on all counts.

Not to be deterred, Council then commissioned research in an attempt to quantify ‘saturation point’, a theoretical tipping point beyond which entertainment precincts descend into uncontrollable mayhem.

However both the new reports agree there is no such thing, objectively – it’s still a matter of opinion.

That’s why one of the reports was based on an opinion survey, with questions carefully massaged to produce the desired opinion.

Council is now flaunting the studies as objective support for its position. But critical analysis reveals fundamental flaws in the reports and Councillors should be careful about going into battle with such dodgy weapons. Rubber swords don’t cut the mustard.

Governments have become adept at producing research that supports their agenda. It’s a good tactic because journalists and voters tend to accept its scientific validity at face value – for example The Sydney Morning Herald has swallowed these reports whole and presents them as supporting Council’s frame of reference.

However a growing international chorus protests this sort of research, pointing out that most studies in the news turn out to be simply wrong. The worst examples share a few common features: small sample sizes, a lack of peer review, cherrypicking data, and presenting links or correlations between sets of data without showing a causal effect. Studies commissioned by organisations are several times more likely to support the organisation than independent studies.

These City of Sydney reports suffer from all the above.

For instance the more credible of the two, from the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre (NDARC), uses data from 2001 to 2006 to show a strong correlation between an increase in licensed premises and alcohol-related crime in Oxford Street and Kings Cross.

But it ignores more recent data that contradicts this. A proliferation of major new venues in Kings Cross has occurred over the past year with the opening of The Trademark, Piano Bar, the renovated Kings Cross Hotel, Madame deBiers, the Sugarmill and Springfields, all concentrated into ‘The Strip’ by the very Council that now bemoans ‘over-concentration’.

These venues were all vehemently opposed by the small but vocal bunch of serial resident objectors crying ‘alcohol-fuelled violence’.

However, according to local police reports, all categories of crime in the area (except break-and-enter) steadily fell over the same period. Even if crime rates had remained level, the saturation-point theory would be seriously compromised in the face of such a large increase in venue capacity.

But middleclass morals campaigners are not noted for their objectivity, and when Adrian Bartels, Chairman of the Potts Point and Kings Cross Partnership, raised the more recent, less violent data at Council, Cr Chris Harris scathingly accused him of ignoring the “clear” data in the reports. He then questioned Kings Cross Crime Manager Darren Schott who confirmed Bartels’ position. Cr Shayne Mallard asked Harris if he was going to apologise to Bartels but this was not to be and Council went ahead and voted the reports in, ignoring the most current data.

The reports grapple with other contradictory data showing that Manly and Coogee have higher rates of crime than Kings Cross and Oxford Street yet have a lower concentration of licensed premises. This is explained away as evidence that a small number of venues trigger most of the problems. If true, this would be an argument for targeting troublesome venues rather than taking a big stick to entertainment precincts as a whole – and police say they know which venues these are. Assistant Commissioner Catherine Burn said police already target “venues which have assaults, glassings and continued breaches”.

The assault data do not differentiate between serious violence and minor push-and-shove. Local police report that most incidents are in fact minor and some do not even involve personal contact, so the spectre of “alcohol-fuelled violence” looks worse on paper than it really is.

Council’s opinion survey is less credible again. Its ‘clear’ results stated: “residents of both Oxford Street and Kings Cross believe that the saturation point has been reached and indeed exceeded.”

But crunch the data and the picture muddies. The street surveys used for the study targeted residents but deliberately avoided people in pubs or cafés “so as not to interfere with their quiet enjoyment of these venues.” Very considerate but as pubs were the subject of the survey, isn’t that that introducing a bias?

And why limit it to residents? The survey said on average only 35% of people on the street were locals, down to 21% on a Thursday night. No doubt it would be even lower on weekend evenings when the party crowds descend.

So while it seems reasonable to survey only residents, they are a small minority of those who use these destination areas. There are close to 5,000 hotel rooms in the area, representing a large tourist presence. Shouldn’t their needs and wishes be considered, as well as those of the tens of thousands who visit each week for entertainment? Where does it say that people who choose to live in an entertainment precinct have exclusive rights over it?

Council often frames its position as “protecting residents from violence,” ignoring that most residents are tucked up in bed while a small minority of yobs have a go at each other – 80% of incidents involve only “outsiders”, as the surveys xenophobically describe visitors.

Councillors also ignored a recent email campaign, which saw 2,000 emails a day hitting their inboxes, protesting any plans for a 2am lockout. Grassroots democracy seems not to be one of Council’s strong points.

In the event, only 190 residents of Kings Cross and 192 from Oxford Street were surveyed. Of these, only 20% in Oxford St wanted fewer pubs, clubs and nightclubs, while 18% wanted more small bars. In Kings Cross, only 19% wanted to “restrict opening hours/alcohol outlets”, while the same number wanted more small bars. This is not exactly a ringing endorsement of Council’s anti-pub position.

Predictably, anti-pub attitudes were stronger among older respondents than younger ones – is this just a generational conflict?

The surveys said perceptions of safety had reduced in Oxford St but improved in Kings Cross, which has the higher concentration of licensed premises, again counter to Council’s saturation hypothesis.

Another fault in the survey came at Question 11, one of those “would you like to see more or less of…” closed questions, with pubs listed at question one.

While I live in Kings Cross and do not think that venue-bashing is an effective solution to the area’s problems, I also have no wish for any more pubs – locals already have a choice of 285 licensed premises within a few minutes walk, so not many locals are going to answer “More”.

That does not mean I am going to object when another one pops up, on the grounds that I choose to live in an entertainment precinct and the market will sort itself out (witness the demise of Springfields), and it’s already so noisy around here what difference can a few more or less make? I might have answered “about the same” to that question but my only other choice was for “less” pubs, which would not represent my views. These closed questions can be tricky.

There was also of course a swag of data that supported the conclusions Council has endorsed and Council has been cherrypicking and broadcasting that. Still, the surveys were unrepresentative and intrinsically flawed, and are not the magic bullet Council was hoping for.

The surveys and Council also ignore the advantages of concentrated entertainment precincts: With a large number of venues clustered around public transport hubs, fewer people need to drive to a night out and they can walk between venues. A smaller area means faster police, ambulance and paramedic response times. CCTV becomes viable and more effective. The services needed by the marginalised people who are attracted to these areas can concentrate there – Missionbeat, outreach social workers, free food vans and the like. And no doubt people who choose to live outside entertainment precincts are happy for the fallout to be concentrated around them.

The debate therefore remains virtually unchanged because the research can be spun any way you like. So how can problems be reduced? Residents were all for increased police presence and visibility, something that is possible according to AC Catherine Burn, who stated:

“We do not lack resources to deal with the weekend crowds in Kings Cross and Oxford Street. I deploy police from the Central Metropolitan Region to where the crime is and on Friday and Saturday nights the bulk of the crime is in the city and it is alcohol related. As a result extra police are involved in operations to combat this crime and make the city a safer place.”

Special operations on weekends already bring up to 50 extra police into the area. Perhaps that’s not enough.

Another problem is the lack of public transport on a busy night. The last train out of Kings Cross leaves at 1.21am, leaving hordes of people without transport. Taxis often dry up around 3am, when on a big night the streets throng with stranded people, the girls carrying their dancing shoes while they hobble around barefoot, and opportunities for trouble multiply.

So, more police and public transport would bring real benefits while Council’s intention to pander to a small number of residents, “rescuing” Kings Cross by strangling venues through regulation, is fraught with ambiguity. Nevertheless, armed with their new research, that is what they will do. The new material is to be put on public exhibition for comment. You can sit on the sidelines or you can have your say. It’s your choice.