Look To Geelong For Solution To Social Ills

Newcastle Herald

Saturday March 22, 2008

writes Eamonn McCabe

IT'S time to put the case for the alliance of respected and long-standing Newcastle hotel operators.

We live locally. We have a passion and pride for our city. We respect family values. We are also concerned about violence and anti-social behaviour in our town.

We want Newcastle to be a vibrant, clean and safe city. We want alcohol off the streets. We want Newcastle to be a place of enjoyment for visitors to our city, our patrons and local residents.

As a major regional city, Newcastle must have a sophisticated and safe entertainment precinct, providing opportunities for locals, visitors and tourists to socialise. Hotels offer employment in hospitality for our young people while supplementing a thriving arts and entertainment industry.

Novocastrians should not be told they are not welcome in their own city. Newcastle has always been inclusive and egalitarian, a city that has often stared adversity in the face and won. We need to find a community-wide solution.

In the Victorian city of Geelong, a city that is similar to Newcastle in many ways, the adoption of a range of strategies has been successful in reducing crime and anti-social behaviour.

Jan Farrell, a local councillor and member of that city's Stay Safe Committee, outlined the issues facing Geelong on ABC radio earlier this week. In Geelong, they have correctly identified the problem as a multi-faceted one, requiring co-operation on a range of solutions from a range of parties. In Geelong, young people were consulted about the issue. Council, police, residents, hotels and patrons all worked together to provide a suite of solutions, for the benefit of all.

One of the main points Ms Farrell made was in response to the lockout imposed on Newcastle hoteliers. She said, and I quote: "We are trying really hard to not go down that path."

The focus in Geelong has been on providing supervised taxi ranks, more taxis and better public transport at peak times, more police on the streets, improved lighting and CCTV cameras, safe "chill-out" zones as well as initiatives to attract a diverse range of people into the city at night.

As here in Newcastle, the majority of assaults and violence in Geelong occurred on the streets. Some people come into town already loaded up on alcohol. A four-point approach was developed to tackle this problem.

Police and hotel security staff in Geelong have linked two-way radios to alert each other about troublesome people. The hotels of Newcastle also propose a two-way radio network to connect our security teams. The use of this system has allowed detection and prosecution of offenders by Victorian police.

Each late-night trading venue installed the ID Eye Scan system. This system allows the identification of offenders. The police increased the rate of detection and prosecution with intelligence from this source. An element of the technology enabled offenders barred from one hotel to be barred from all in the city. The hotels of Newcastle have undertaken to install this technology.

The third solution is seven CCTV cameras providing taped coverage of key areas 24 hours a day. Police monitor these cameras at peak times, enabling immediate response to every act of anti-social behaviour on the streets. We are calling on council and police to install CCTV and use those systems to prosecute offenders.

Victorian police ruthlessly prosecuted drinking in public places. Our police need the Local Government Act amended to enable a like prosecution of this policy for Newcastle.

The adoption of this four-point plan saw a reduction in the annual figures for assaults of 36 per cent and a 70 per cent reduction in malicious damage, after only four months of operation. The only people inconvenienced by the adoption of the plan were offenders. They were identified, charged and removed from late-night Geelong.

The hotel industry accepts it has a responsibility to help solve the problem. Local government and state government also have responsibilities in the provision of solutions and we call on them to actively join in the provision of identified and successful solutions.

We are ready to work together to see Newcastle emerge as a city with a bright future. Will you join us?

Eamonn McCabe is the operator of the Crown and Anchor Hotel. Hotels participating in the alliance include: Civic Hotel; Crown and Anchor Hotel; Fanny's of Newcastle; Queens Wharf Brewery; Customs House; The Grand Hotel; King Street Hotel; Cambridge Hotel; Ducks Nuts Hotel and The Dockyard.

© 2008 Newcastle Herald

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