Letter

Sugarmill’s soured situation

No crocodile tears need to be shed on Sydney City Council’s decision to limit the Sugarmill Hotel’s use of public space for outdoor drinking. It was both desperate and foolish of Sydney City Council to approve this former bank site as a place of public entertainment in 2005, even with the restricted opening hours then proposed. Not satisfied, the Sugarmill then went to the developer-friendly Land & Environment Court which agreed to an extension of trading hours and reduced acoustic requirements, even though there is a row of grand Art Deco apartment blocks just metres from the hotel. Still, those apartments were as plain as the nose on an investor’s face, and the Sugarmill made its financial decisions in the full knowledge that its local impacts would be keenly watched and felt. Any developer who flies in the face of the wishes of residents, and the Council, can only blame itself when the tide turns. Several of the Kings Cross late night trading venues are in financial trouble, which is no surprise because most people work in the day, and sleep at night. Late-night revellers represent what is known as a ‘thin market’, in economic jargon. As many of us keep repeating, a concentration of late-night trading venues is economically, socially, and environmentally unsustainable. A high price is being paid by all of us for the public planning folly known as the Kings Cross entertainment precinct.