The Enmore Theatre is set to be the first venue in Sydney exempt from the noise complaints that have spoiled the local nightlife economy.
The Enmore Theatre is making headlines this week as the first venue in Sydney to be exempt from notorious noise complaints that have plagued much of Newtown and Enmore’s local nightlife.
In particular, the Inner West Council will be considering a proposal to designate the theatre as a ‘special entertainment precinct’ to free it from scrutiny.
The new changes are part of 63 new amendments to local law designed to promote live music venues, and therefore make it harder for venues to be shut down by the controversial complaints.
If successful, noise complaints will no longer go through Liquor and Gaming NSW, the Land and Environment Court or licensing police, and instead be handled by the local council.
As Inner West mayor, Darcy Byrne puts it, these new regulations will streamline the complaint process.
“Seven separate agencies in NSW regulated noise – with three or four main ones – and that was a concern for venues. Having a lack of certainty and overlapping functions and processes really created an environment that undermined investor confidence,” he stated.
“In Sydney, the cliche of a person moving in next door to a long-standing pub and complaining about noise has been a reality for many years. Worse still, many operators go broke because noise complaints are prosecuted by more than half a dozen government agencies. This tacit fun police force has been strangling the live music sector.”
BREAKING: The @Enmore_Theatre would become the first “Special Entertainment Precinct” in NSW through a motion we’ve tabled for the next Council meeting. The @smh reports on our plan to give Inner West live music a shot in the arm to recover from COVID 🎸🎹 https://t.co/Jo6OLNgn7s
— Darcy Byrne (@MayorDarcy) April 25, 2021
It will also make it easier for shops and other retail premises to transform into small venues. This will likely see the local arts and nightlife scene flourish – a major turnaround from both the COVID lockdowns and lockout laws that have crippled much of the industry over the past decade.
In fact, Inner West Council is just one of 15 councils vying to be the first to implement the new laws, with laws to be extended across the main streets of Marrickville, Newtown and Leichhardt.
John Wardle of the Live Music Office in Queensland speaks highly of the new proposals, praising the change of the word ‘noise’ to ‘sound’ under the new regulations as it removes the presumption that music venues are noise polluters.
Queensland has been operating with special entertainment precincts since 2006, which has seen great developments in the local nightlife economy.
Wardle also praised other concessions set to take off, including an 80 per cent cut in liquor licensing fees and a half-hour daily extension to trading hours.
I can’t understand how people moving next to a source of loud sound complained about the sound. I understand if a place had no music liscence and closed at 10 then applied for one for very loud music past 2am every day. But if you move next o a 100+ yr old music venue? FFS!
— 🇨🇦 🇮🇹 🇦🇺 Joe Ortenzi (@wheelyweb) April 25, 2021
