My Neighbourhood

If you’ve read more than a few of my posts, you’ll know I’m far from a wowser, but at some point, you just say “no”. My neighbourhood, a neighbourhood I love, is already home to more than 60 hotels and licensed venues, so when I find a “dear neighbour” flyer in my letterbox telling me about a proposal for a new boozer within a few hundred metres of my apartment (and entreating me to contact my local councillors and member of parliament in protest about it), I don't throw the flyer out with the junk mail.

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Attention: Yarra City Council
Re: Permit Application No. PLO60973 (for a hotel at 222 Brunswick Street)

I hereby lodge a formal objection to the proposal to convert the building at 222 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy, into a hotel.
If this proposal is successful, it will have an enormously detrimental effect on the amenity of the area and the large resident community – an area of families, a diverse community, and a safe one.
Brunswick Street already has a disproportionately large number of licensed venues, many of which are pubs and bars with late licences. In the block between Gertrude Street and Johnston – the same block as the new hotel venue is proposed for, there are already four pubs – the Perseverance, the Labour in Vain, the Colonial Inn and the Rob Roy. Bars in the block include Ginger and the Black Cat.
I see and hear the result of the large number of licensed venues most days of the week. It’s a rare day that the entrance to my apartment block isn’t littered with puddles of urine, empty bottles and sometimes vomit. Walking along Brunswick Street, the same is evident most days.
Three or four nights out of seven, the noise of drunks echoes up to my third-floor apartment in the early hours of the morning. Often, presumably when some venues have closed, this noise can go on for hours as the patrons move north along the street. When I look over the balcony there are often hordes of what look to me like teenagers moving down the street. The other night there could have been a hundred or more of them; it’s hard to sleep with such noise, and I’ve watched them lie in the middle of the road, stop traffic, get into fights and, about two weeks ago, one of them pulled his pants down and proceeded to attempt to defecate into a post box. Thankfully a police patrol car came past at that moment.
And all this happens with the existing number of licensed venues. I can only imagine how another large-capacity one will affect things.
Sadly, Brunswick Street is already more of an entertainment precinct than a characterful local high street that primarily serves its resident community. I fear that another licensed venue will be the tipping point for Brunswick Street to turn into one-dimensional, cookie-cutter entertainment zone. That will damage the suburb’s already fragile charm and character and ultimately send visitors somewhere else looking for the experience that Brunswick Street, Fitzroy once offered.

Sincerely,