Forum to raise the bar
LEADING lights of Gold Coast hospitality want the small bar scene to take off and create a more mature city nightlife.
The fourth Gold Coast venue with a small bar licence will open in Burleigh soon, fuelling hopes boutique watering holes common in Brisbane will flourish here, too.
Leeroy Donily, general manager at Palm Beach dining and bar precinct the Collective, said the city’s nightlife “culture needs to catch up”.
“The small bar scene will take off,” Mr Donily said. “I think we are the only large population centre in Australia and possibly the world which hasn’t been able to organically develop its bar scene.”
Mr Donily is one of the speakers at tomorrow’s Gold Coast bar and restaurant industry talkfest exploring industry innovation.
Rising wage rates, the Coast’s bar and restaurant scene’s readiness for the Commonwealth Games and stiff new liquor laws will be on the agenda. But the evolution of the bar scene is a hot topic Mr Donily hopes will get a decent airing.
“I think the culture in general is steering away from that late night, huge drinking session to 3am,” he said.
“The culture is becoming more developed and the Gold Coast is changing – people are more educated and going down the dining with drinking scene a bit more rather than just dining or just drinking.
“Nightclubs have dropped
off – people are wisening up that binge drinking isn’t the way.”
Mr Donily said on the restaurant front the Coast had had a “bad culture of closing early for some time”.
But he was optimistic operators would adjust ahead of
next April’s Commonwealth Games, when crowds are expected to spill out of sporting venues after 10pm and hit the town.
“For the Commonwealth Games as it stands, I don’t think we are set up at all,” he said.
Soho Place small bar owner Scott Imlach, opening new Burleigh small bar Night Jar soon, is also speaking and said new liquor laws were “absolutely ridiculous”.
Labor brought last drinks forward two hours to 3am in the Safe Night Precincts of Surfers and Broadbeach, banned shots after midnight and require compulsory ID scanning from 10pm at venues open past midnight.
Mr Imlach said the ID scanners – which must be operated by a security guard and aim to weed out banned patrons – were not viable for smaller venues. “The amount of trouble you get is next to none in a small bar,” he said.