Night life benefits flow wide

THERE is no reason Townsville shouldn’t have a thriving night life.

And the fact is a thriving night life is good for most businesses in Townsville.

It cements us as a fun destination for young people to visit and study and brings others who want to blow off steam into the city from the surrounding regions.

And it doesn’t take a genius, or an expensive government study, to see that the money these people bring to town gets spread far and wide, from surrounding restaurants, to the nearby casino, to fuel stations and local attractions and specialty shops the next day.

Our nightclubs are in many ways the lifeblood of our CBD and they’re certainly the lifeblood of East Flinders St.

It is not very difficult to see that if the clubs on our little strip start to struggle, Flinders St East will really struggle.

And let’s not forget it is only a tiny minority of the people who are going out and drinking late into the night who are causing problems.

This is not to degrade or talk down the plight of victims of drunken crime — such as one- punch attacks — but it remains a simple statement of statistical fact.

Ultimately if the clubs comply with the law and don’t over- serve patrons — which by all indications they are — and they continue to support the scanning of identification cards of patrons — then allowing the venues to remain open an extra two hours is an idea worth considering.

Added to all of this is the plain fact the scanners achieve two things. Firstly they mean anyone who perpetuates an act of violence in a venue is easily identifiable, and secondly it means anyone who leaves a venue after committing an act of violence in the nearby area is also easily identifiable.

As much as it would be nice if drunken street violence could be removed from society by something as simple as a 3am lockout the fact is it can’t, so it’s worth at least having a discussion about allowing responsible venues to keep their doors open longer.