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 ...