Small Bars and the Town of Vincent

What does the Town of Vincent have against small bars?

Small bars have started to spring up in the couple of years since the license came into effect, but very few have been in the Town of Vincent. The council has approved a few (like The Cabin in Mt Hawthorn and Double Lucky in Leederville), but they've also knocked back several for spurious reasons.

The council's stubborn recalcitrance has become a bit of an obsession of mine, and I've developed the deeply nerdy habit of scouring the council's minutes looking for something to piss me off. This is not normal behaviour, I know, but I just can't help myself.

One of the worst cases I've found relates to a small bar that was proposed for Oxford St. The applicant wanted to open a small wine bar catering for up to 80 patrons, focusing on up-market wine and food.

The council received a petition in favour of the application, signed by 104 people. It also received a petition opposing the application, signed by eight people. Eight. The council refused the application.

Bear in mind that the building had already operated as a cafe. It's on Oxford St, near the Re Store, there's a lot of traffic. The Leederville Hotel is a few hundred metres away, as is Leederville Oval. TAFE is over the road. This isn't the middle of suburbia, it's a busy inner-city suburb. The place was going to be a small wine bar, not a rowdy pub.

Then there's another case, relating to a place just a few metres away on the corner of Oxford and Richmond Streets. This bar, Bar Rosso, was intended to be "a premium wine bar and cocktail venue with associated gourmet food". Again, not a rowdy pub. Fifteen people signed a petition against the application. It was refused, too.

I must admit that neither of these bars sound like places I'd be particularly interested in, but that's not really the point.

Why did the council refuse these applications, and a whole bunch of others? Two reasons. First of all, parking. Second, the objections of a few local cranks.

Parking

On the issue of parking: uh, what? Shouldn't people be discouraged from driving their cars to a bar?

Why does everything need to be planned around the car? David Byrne said it best: "the policy of infinite accommodation to the car needs to stop and be reversed if our cities are to survive as more than clumps of offices and parking garages."

Also, several of the proposed bars have already operated as cafes or restaurants or pool halls. Presumably people drove to those. Why does the council require more parking for a bar than for a cafe? While we're at it, where is the parking for all the big pubs (the Queens, the Leederville) that already exist?

Not in my immaculately manicured backyard

My personal favourite objection came from the guy who thought that one of the wine bars mentioned above might lure young people from the TAFE over the road (I'm not making this up, it's here). Yes, your typical 19-year old TAFE student will definitely go buy an expensive glass of Bordeaux instead of getting a jug from the Leedy a few hundred metres away.

The other objections generally amount to the time-honoured cry of "not in my backyard", to which I would reply: you live in an inner city suburb. You probably moved here because it's more "vibrant", more alive than far-off suburbia. Why try to suffocate the little glimmer of activity that is trying to poke its way to the surface?

I've never voted in local council elections. It seems a bit pointless, and I can never tell what the candidates actually stand for (it's always "the community" and "small business" and "sunshine" and "motherhood"). Maybe I should vote next time.

Anyway, apologies for the slightly off-topic rant, normal service will resume shortly. I've got an awesome recipe for slow-braised octopus that I want to share.