Secret bar uncovered during Kings Cross raid

Trusted patrons were paying up to $350 an hour for a “private room” where they could smoke and drink well after the designated 3am last drinks shutdown.

“There’s certainly potential to be more and we rely on information from the public,” Assistant Commissioner Mick Fuller said.

“We are always concerned when alcohol is being served illegally.

“It’s a real public safety issue when you don’t know what you are being served and at the same time drugs are made available and we need to take strong action as we did in Kings Cross.”

Dreamgirls agreed to close until January 8 after three staff were charged with supplying cocaine.

The club also agreed to pull down the private bar while they discuss with the Office of Liquor and Gaming which conditions they can operate under.

It is understood OLGA is still seeking to permanently close the club for flouting liquor laws and Dreamgirls may now be up for sale itself.

A 14th club, Bada Bing, remains closed until the end of the month after drug dealing on the premises was uncovered by police during the same raid that targeted Dreamgirls.

The clubs risk heavy fines and loss of their licence as police crack down on the illegal trading. 

The lockout laws were introduced by the NSW Government in February 2014 in response to alcohol-fuelled violence which led to a series of deaths in the nightclub precinct and profits at some of the bars plummeted by around 40 per cent.

The laws imposed 1.30am lockouts for most hotels, nightclubs and bars, a ban on shots after midnight and a 3am last-drinks policy.

Assistant Commissioner Fuller said ID scanners at the clubs and bars had shown they were still attracting a lot of customers but Kings Cross and the CBD were safer because the 1.30am lockout had stopped huge crowds of drunken young people moving from one club to another.

John Ibrahim’s Piano Room and Trademark have been turned into X Studio, a number of separate studios which can be hired out during the day and a licensed bar allowed to sell alcohol between 11pm and 3am.

While those groups directly affected — venues, DJs and partygoers — say the rules are draconian, the local residents have never been happier.

Convener of the 2011 Residents’ Association, Helen Crossing, said she had not heard of these illegal drinking dens but the residents of the 2011 postcode — including Kings Cross — were just happy the lockout laws were keeping drunks off the streets.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if these places exist, people are always being creative,” Ms Crossing said yesterday.

“The concern is that at some point, people drinking in these bars are going to have to get out on to the street.”

Originally published as: Lockout laws: Fears of illegal bars after Dreamgirls raid uncovers hidden speakeasy
Source: The Daily Telegraph, Mark Morri and Janet Fife-Yeomans, 12^th January 2016