Sydney: 64 hours of steady drinking

Sydney Morning Herald
November 17, 2007

THE owner of an Oxford Street pub has threatened court action if she is refused permission to open for 64 hours straight every weekend.

Anna Stillone, owner of the Burdekin Hotel, has applied to City of Sydney Council to open all five floors of her hotel from 8am until 2am every weekday and from 8am Friday until midnight on Sunday. Extended trading is expected to double the pub's patronage to more than 800 people at peak periods.

The development application has sparked an angry campaign from nearby residents. "Noise is the biggest issue," said one, Christine Byrne. "It's a highly residential area, and here we have the potential to have, every weekend, all day and every night, over 800 people at the gateway to Oxford Street boozing and smoking, screaming and fighting. We will never sleep."

Ms Byrne said Oxford Street was much noisier and disruptive than when she moved in 10 years ago. "The number of late-trading nightclubs has grown and grown … . It's mayhem as they pour out of these places," she said.

"Our owners' corporation is now paying between $100 and $150 a week every week … to clean faeces, urine and drug paraphernalia from our stairwells."

She said the Burdekin had a history of breaching its noise limits, but Ms Stillone denied this ...

Noisy air-con puts Sydney woman in court

Daily Telegraph
August 20, 2007

REPLACING her old air conditioner with a reverse cycle unit has landed Dragica Koceva in court after the western Sydney resident failed to comply with a noise control notice issued by Fairfield council.

Mrs Koceva, 51, of St Johns Park, said she has been victimised because she uses her air conditioner.

''This is ridiculous. I feel like a criminal, they made me feel like I did something wrong,'' Mrs Koceva told The Daily Telegraph.

''I have lived 20 years in Australia and suddenly I have to go to court because I'm using my air conditioner ...

Mrs Koceva said since a neighbour made the complaint about her $990 air conditioner, she has spent at least $400 to modify the noise level to suit council standards ...

A council officer is expected to come out and test the air conditioner noise levels again this week. ''I don't think it's too loud,'' Ms Koceva said ...

Ms Koceva's case highlights a growing problem _ burgeoning numbers of noise complaints to local councils in response to a trend for larger, reverse cycle air conditioner units. Manly council's manager for regulatory services, Mark Pearson said the trend for larger homes had meant consumers were now installing commercial-scale reverse cycle climate control units.

''We get between 10 and 13 complaints a week about air conditioner noise,'' Mr Pearson said ...

Figures for air conditioner noise complaints from Blacktown council showed complaints have increased by 25 per cent in five years.

City of Sydney council said noisy air conditioners accounted for roughly 10 per cent of its more than 1000 noise complaints in the last calender year ...

'You try to keep them at least three metres from the property's boundary,'' he said. Ms Koceva meanwhile has been ordered to attend Fairfield Local Court next month.

NSW: On the blower: when council keeps you up

Sydney Morning Herald
On the blower: no one to call when the council keeps you up
Sunanda Creagh Urban Affairs Reporter
July 26, 2007

AT 4AM every Monday Kay Violet lies in bed listening to the sound of a leaf blower.

"I wake up at about 2am because I know it's going to happen. I lie there waiting and, sure enough, at 4am it starts up and they are blowing these leaves down the street," Ms Violet, of Guildford, said yesterday. "Sometimes on other days they use the leaf blower at 1am but at least you can get back to sleep."

The culprits are cleaners employed by Paramatta City Council, tidying the streets outside a row of shops in Guildford Road ...