Balcony fools get the boot

STUDENTS who diced with death on a hotel balcony at Surfers Paradise on Monday have been given the boot.

Breakfree Imperial Surf Hotel, which is owned by the Mantra Group, said the two people involved are no longer staying at the property.

“The property has arranged for the perpetrators to be collected by their family and to leave the premises,” Mantra Group said in a statement.

“The safety and security of our guests, team members, contractors and visitors is our highest priority.”

Footage has also emerged of a group of Schoolies hanging off a balcony at Focus Apartments.

Focus Apartments declined to comment on the incident.

Mark Reaburn, Chair of Gold Coast Schoolies Com- munity Safety Response, said Schoolies needed to understand they can be arrested for playing around on balconies.

“Behaving irresponsibly on balconies is extremely dangerous,” he said.

“If caught, school leavers can be evicted from their accommodation and even arrested by the police.”

Schoolies.com CEO Matt Lloyd said he was not surprised by the eviction of the two school students.

“Each year we have about 10 groups evicted from hotels for a number of different reasons,” he said. “These could be noise complaints and aren’t always balcony related.”

Mr Lloyd said tough action had to be taken when dangerous behaviour happened on balconies. “I fully support the hotel’s decision to evict the students,” he said. “It is far too dangerous to have Schoolies playing around on balconies.”