The following letter was recently published in the Wentworth Courier
Compliance failure Carole Ferrier 8th November 2011
Suzie Matthews, Manager City of Sydney Late Night Economy, was asked a simple question by me in this column: how many Compliance Officers are on duty in Kings Cross on Friday and Saturday nights to ensure licensees comply with their DA conditions?
She has still not answered this question, instead offering the same “spin” we have been getting for 4 years – ‘we are employing officers’. It should be simple to check the rosters of these ‘phantom officers’ and give readers the answer. Without compliance, mayhem results – as residents see every weekend in Kings Cross. And it begs the question: why would any tourist ever come to Clover Moore’s major Entertainment Precinct when it houses a potentially violent alcohol-fuelled mob of 25,000 drunks?
Who would dare walk back or out of their hotel room in the Cross or the city after midnight on the weekend to be amongst brawling drunks? Perhaps this is yet another reason why Sydney can’t get tourist numbers up: Council has failed its residents in the inner city and is failing the wider tourist industry as well.
