'Saturday Night': Video shows Sydney's Kings Cross much more quiet, closed-up than back in Cold Chisel's heyday
Sydney's lord mayor has called the NSW government's controversial lockout laws a "prohibition of the 21st Century".
But if you take a look at one old Cold Chisel film clip, the laws seemingly leave the city below the par of the 1980s.
Keep Sydney Open, an advocacy group looking to have the laws repealed, released a video comparing today's desolate and deserted King Cross with the once vibrant adult entertainment precinct of the 1980s.
The clip compares the strip of today with clips shown in Chisel's 1984 video clip "Saturday Night" – and the contrast is like night and day.
In the Chisel clip there are people flooding the streets and revellers filling the bars with foot traffic passing by panhandlers begging among smiling young people enjoying their Saturday night.
Footage shot on Saturday night of today shows empty streets, shuttered bars, clubs and shops – nothing that would inspire Jimmy Barnes to write any sort of song other than a requiem.
The video comes as Keep City Open and other like groups make their submissions to a review of Sydney's lockout laws that prevent people bar hopping after 1.30am and turf punters out at 3am from venues in the CBD.
Introduced in 2014, the laws have coincided with an 80 per cent drop in foot traffic through Kings Cross on weekends and the closure of several nightclubs and businesses including the up-market Hugo's Lounge.
Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore has come out against the laws in her submission to the review, suggesting the blanket ban should not apply to every venue, signalling out small bars and low-risk venues as places that should not face the same restrictions as larger venues.
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"Rather than addressing the real problems, the NSW Government’s response was to introduce a blanket lockout across the city centre and Kings Cross (with an inexplicable exemption for the casino)," Ms Moore said with her submission.
Ms Moore told the Daily Mail she would like to see more small bars and live music venues be allowed to operate and labelled the casino exception "inconceivable", suggesting the major parties were beholden to the gambling industry.
"I just think that's incredible and I think it shows how both major parties have succumbed to the influence of the gambling industry.
"What we're proposing is not radical, it's really quite sensible… these lock-out laws are prohibition in the 21st century," she said.
The mayor said if Sydney wanted to remain a global city in the eyes of the world it needed "reform" in the same way as other "sophisticated" cities have.
News break – April 4
