The current liquor laws, as introduced in July 2016, allow venues to serve alcohol until 2:00am, except for those venues that fall within the ‘safe nights’ precincts, which are permitted to keep serving until 3:00am. These areas include Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley, where many of the city’s nightclubs and music venues are located.
ID scanners are common within inner city venues in other cities such as Melbourne and have generally been regarded as an effective way to keep track of patrons in case of any incidents. As in New South Wales, Queensland’s tightening of its liquor laws were intended as a way to combat public violence.
Besides the revisions to the lockout laws, the government will also limit the number of one-off permits for specials events that are granted to venues to serve past 3:00am from 12 to six.
These changes came about after the cabinet received a report on the effectiveness of the laws introduced last year, which found that there were no noticeable drops in assaults or incidents in the affected areas.
These decisions follow the NSW government’s relaxation of Sydney’s lockout laws in December, when it was announced that their lockouts would be pushed back by half an hour to 2:00am, with alcohol being served until 3:30am.
