Image Via Facebook / Harold Park Hotel

Historic Sydney Pub Forced To Bin Live Music Night After New Neighbour Complains

UPDATE 15/02/17: As The Music reports, live music will return to the Harold Park Hotel this weekend, after the pub worked with the City Of Sydney to find a solution.

ORIGINAL STORY: In this week’s episode of Sydney’s Culture Gets Slowly But Surely Flushed Down The Crapper, an iconic pub in the city’s inner-west has been forced to axe its regular acoustic Sunday session after a new neighbour moved in and complained about the noise.

According to The ABC, Glebe’s historic Harold Park Hotel had been running the popular outdoor live music event for six years, only to be foiled by a noise-hating neighbour who’d been living in the vicinity for two weeks.

Yep, like Valentin managing to get his hands on the golden gun in GoldenEye 007’s multiplayer mode, the amount of damage that one jerk on the warpath can wreak in such a situation is completely unfathomable.

With a single cantankerous yarn to the City of Sydney council, this lone individual has successfully silenced the countless local artists who’ve been performing in the venue’s alfresco courtyard for more than half a decade.

The venue confirmed the sad news earlier this week, posting a pretty heart-wrenching statement to Facebook, which reads:

“So, our popular, long-running, Sunday afternoon music has been knocked on the head, after a complaint from a neighbour, who has just moved in next door. Pub been here 137 years, this anonymous mob move in two weeks, and our Sunday arvo local entertainment is gone. Thanks to all our fabulous musicians and patrons over these past years – it’s been beautiful.”

Despite never obtaining official permission to host live music in the courtyard, pub owner William Ryan tells the ABC the unplugged music was “low-impact entertainment”, which had been supported by the local community for years.

“I’ve had thousands and thousands of Facebook posts and tweets and personal letters and phone calls about the support for the music on a Sunday afternoon,” he says.

“I’m not talking about playing heavy metal until three in the morning … it’s appropriate low-risk music and I’d like to think that’s … a sensible policy.”

However, a spokesperson for the City of Sydney has confirmed to the public broadcaster that the Harold Park Hotel’s conditions of development consent “prohibited live entertainment from being staged in the outside courtyard area”, adding that Council’s Adviser for Live Music and Performance had been in contact with the watering hole to “discuss amending its development consent to allow live music in the courtyard”.

Let’s hope that happens.

And if (but hopefully when) it does, might I suggest Aussie grindcore demons King Parrot as the perfect musical choice to re-launch the Hotel’s new Council-approved courtyard sessions and officially welcome it’s new neighbour to the vicinity with a Sunday evening serenade of Shit On The Liver.

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