High Sobriety (23 page)

I go back to the pub to speak to Tony, and to my friend Brigitte, a Rose regular I met over the bar and went on an overseas holiday with a few years back. When I walk in, there's Brian the plumber sitting on his usual stool, drinking James Squire. When he leaves, he gives Tony a wave and lays his empty pot glass on its side on the bar, as he always does. Andy, another plumber and the former social club president, embraces me warmly. As usual, he's drinking his VB in a stubby holder, with a copper handle he made himself. It's 5.30 on a Thursday evening, and the bar is filled with the usual eclectic mix of blue-collar workers, office staff, old blokes and young blokes, families, hipsters, goths, and students.

Tony greets me with his usual ‘Jilly!', and we hug as I remind him that I'm his favourite barmaid. He may or may not have uttered these words during knock-off drinks one night, but I turned it into indisputable fact and never let him forget it. He can't quite believe I've gone this long without drinking. When he took me on in 2005, I was one of the few people who drank cider; he used to joke that the pub went through more Strongbow in the months after he hired me than they had in the previous year.

The three of us sit down in the dining room, and I ask Tony what the pub means to his regulars. He tells me it's a place of safety and familiarity. He holds, behind the bar, many sets of house keys, left in his care by locals in case they lock themselves out. ‘It's what makes the pub good for me and what makes it different from all the other pubs. It's got that human touch to it, and it's connected. It keeps you very earthed. It makes you realise it's not just about making money,' he says.

One of my favourite Rose regulars was an old bloke called Jack, known to the locals as ‘the old diamond'. Most weekdays, this then 89-year-old former boxer would drive his Mazda 323 to the pub, park himself at the bar, and do the crossword while drinking a beer. He'd come in at about 11.30 a.m. and stay for a couple of hours. We'd chat about his life, football, and the weather. He'd crack jokes at Tony's expense, and call me ‘lass' in a grandfatherly way. Sometimes he'd pick up his groceries on the way to the pub, and I'd pop his lamb's brains in the fridge, on top of the Coopers Green, to keep them cool. Now, at 95, he lives in a nursing home. He no longer drives. But he still comes to the pub by taxi. His family were wary about his regular visits as he grew older, worried for his health. Tony sat down with them recently and worked it out. ‘I said to them, “If he doesn't come here, he will last a couple of months and he'll die because all he lives for is to come here.” He's got no friends at the home, but he's got a lot of friends here. He walks in, he gets seated, he gets his glasses handed to him, he gets the newspaper given to him, he gets his beer, he's got his own chair. So for someone like him, coming to the pub is the difference between life and death. We came up with a compromise: we agreed to take him from heavy beer to light beer, and his family would leave his taxi money behind the bar so we can pay the driver.'

Jack comes in three days a week and drinks two or three pots of light beer. There's no money in customers like him. But for Tony, these are the punters that make coming to work worthwhile. ‘The pub's been good to us. We've met so many good people through here. It's been fantastic in that sense, and that's the biggest spin-off for us. There would be a huge hole if this pub went. Just that meeting place, that connection. I just think of our friends — I have no idea where they would go.'

There's no doubt that The Rose is a second home for many regulars. I could walk in there any day of the week and the same groups of drinkers would be standing in their usual spot at the bar, or at their favourite table, just as they did six years ago when I was pouring their beers. That familiarity is comforting, but I remember wondering back then if it was more than that for some of the locals. The men who would spend five, six, seven, or more hours a day, every day, in the pub couldn't be spending much time with their wives and kids. When they'd try to leave, they'd be badgered by their mates to have one more for the road. For some, a few beers down the local was more than a ritual; it was a problem.

The Rose sits just a block away from the controversial ‘Cheese Grater' complex — an eight-storey apartment block that was completed in 2010, despite years of legal wrangling and more than 550 objections from local residents and businesses, who argued that it would ruin the character of the area. As more apartment buildings spring up, locals worry that these high-density dwellings will further erode Fitzroy's community feel. Tony laughs when he tells me it may be the pub that stops this from happening. ‘It's funny, with the Cheese Grater and a few of the other high-rise apartment blocks that have gone up, they don't socialise at all in those blocks. They all just go in, get in the lifts, in their front door, and they don't see each other. Then they come here to the pub, and they get talking to people and they go, “Oh, you live in the same block as me. We're two doors from each other,” or, “We're on the same floor.” It becomes a real hub of your community, where people actually meet each other and their neighbours more than they do in their own home.'

Tony says his priority as a publican is to ensure that no-one comes to harm, even after they leave the premises. ‘They're all grown-ups, and I'm not there to be their parent and tell them what they can and can't do because quite often you're doing more harm by just throwing them out anyway. They'll just go off and stagger somewhere else. For some people, you're better off keeping them here where you can keep an eye on them. I've walked people home from here, I've driven people home, I've had people walk off from here and I've had to go and find them.'

I think I only refused to serve a customer on a handful of occasions during my six-month stint at The Rose. With a pub full of regulars, it was hard to say no, even when you knew they'd had too much. But how much is too much? Alcohol-related violence across Melbourne has led to a crackdown on irresponsible service. Bar owners and individual staff members are liable for big fines for serving intoxicated patrons. The liquor licensing department has stepped up its random checks. But the definition of intoxication is open to interpretation. To the letter of the law, it's hard to see how Tony can legally serve anyone.

According to the Victorian liquor licensing department's guide on how to spot a drunk person, the signs of intoxication are many and varied. There are the no-brainers: violent behaviour, vomiting, falling over, or sleeping at the bar. But then there are more subtle changes in behaviour: becoming argumentative, annoying other patrons and staff, using offensive language, or displaying inappropriate sexual behaviour. Physical signs include spilling drinks, glassy eyes and lack of focus, swaying and staggering, and bumping into furniture. Finally, you might notice changes in alertness: rambling conversation, loss of train of thought, and difficulty in paying attention. They're helpful tips, but if I'd cut off every sleazy windbag who used foul language, talked shit, and knocked a drink over on the way to the toilet, my bar-wench career would have been over very quickly. The guidelines point out that this list is by no means exhaustive, and does not necessarily give conclusive evidence of intoxication, but they do expect a lot from staff, who are probably on minimum wage and face landing their boss with fines of up to $14,000 if they get it wrong.

‘Prior to refusing service on the basis that a person is intoxicated, you must be able to rule out various medical conditions and disabilities that cause symptoms similar to intoxication. For example, possible illness, injury, or medical conditions such as brain trauma, hypoglycaemia, or pneumonia,' the guidelines advise. So on a Saturday night when it's three-deep at the bar, the music's pumping, and they can't hear their own voice above the cackles of a wayward hen's party, the bartender is expected to weigh up symptoms and make a diagnosis before deciding if the slurring punter in front of them has had one too many shandies or is in fact a stroke victim? It seems like a lot to ask. In my experience in busy venues, particularly in clubs and late-night bars, there's very little time to make an assessment of the customer's ability to handle another drink. It's a production line: the faster you can get the drinks out, the more people you can serve, and the easier your night will be.

At small, family-friendly pubs like The Rose, it's simpler to spot someone who's wasted. And a lot of the time, you'll know them. You'll know if they're a bit pissed, but harmless. You'll know how to take the heat out of the situation, and make them laugh when they get argumentative. And if things do get out of hand, the other regulars will help you out.

Tony has a zero-tolerance policy on violence and aggression in his pub. It's a standpoint the locals fully support. Although the incidence of violence is low — I can remember only one punch being thrown in all the time I worked at The Rose, and that was between two university mates arguing about whether the death penalty was barbaric — if something kicks off, it will quickly be shut down by the regulars. ‘We just don't tolerate it,' Brigitte says. ‘We'll tell them it's not on, to take it elsewhere. You look at your bar staff too, and your management. Do you have bar staff who are invested in the pub and are friends with the people over the bar, who have a relationship with those people? Or are they just there to look good? You can defuse so many situations if you actually have a relationship with the people you're serving.'

Having staff and clientele who feel a connection with the pub may explain why The Rose very rarely attracts trouble, despite being just a few hundred metres from Brunswick Street, where there's always a strong police presence and most of the bars have bouncers on the door. Brigitte, who has lived just off Brunswick Street for five years, has noticed a change recently. ‘In our place it's normally very quiet, with the way the building's facing, but the last six to 12 months, the amount of fights we've heard, the amount of bottles being thrown … We even heard a gunshot about three or four months ago, which I've never heard before. It just seems to be getting worse and worse.'

There's no one answer to explain this shift in behaviour, but the increasing availability of booze surely plays a part. The liberalisation of alcohol laws in Victoria in the late 1980s and 1990s led to an avalanche of new liquor licences. In 2011, there are more than 19,000 outlets selling booze — a 77 per cent increase on 2000. Preventative Health Taskforce chair Rob Moodie maintains that Victoria has gone from the ‘wowser state' to the ‘wet and sloshed state'. Over the same period, alcohol-related ambulance callouts increased by 258 per cent, hospitalisations went up by 87 per cent, assaults by 49 per cent, and family violence incidents in which alcohol was a contributing factor doubled. A few years ago, when my Fitzroy gym started selling beer and my hairdressing salon offered me free champagne with my blow-wave, I remember thinking that there aren't many places left where you can't get a drink in this town.

As I say my goodbyes to Tony and Brigitte, I think about the contrast between the convivial atmosphere of The Rose and that of the neighbouring Brunswick Street. It's hard to believe that the two co-exist in such close proximity. I've seen the aggression — when you're living in the inner city, it's hard to avoid. I stopped drinking in Brunswick Street years ago, partly because I moved further out, but also because the friendly village feel that used to make it so appealing has all but gone. The troubles of the city seem to be creeping further north, enveloping our bar and cafe strips in simmering tension. Being sober makes it even more noticeable. Driving home through Fitzroy one night recently, the atmosphere on the street was charged and hostile. Stopped at the traffic lights, watching drinkers bouncing around erratically like characters in a video game, I couldn't wait to get out of there.

A lot of the trouble seems to start in queues, as drinkers lose patience with lining up to get into crowded venues. Police say that the smoking ban inside pubs has exacerbated the problem: more people hanging around outside bars and clubs to have a ciggie leads to more altercations with passing punters. It's a trend the police are trying to combat: a 6 per cent increase in assaults in 2010 in the City of Yarra — which takes in the popular inner-city drinking areas of Fitzroy, Collingwood, and Richmond — led to a crackdown on antisocial behaviour. Pissed punters caught damaging cars and shops, getting into fights, drinking on the street, or being drunk and disorderly were arrested, handed on-the-spot fines, or banned from the area for 24 hours. The operation was deemed a success. Still, once a suburb is sprawling with cops, you can't help thinking that some of its charm has been lost.

What's interesting about this rise in aggression is that it's not just blokes picking fights. I've seen women throw punches; I've watched them get kicked out of pubs for abusing bar staff. The rise of a phenomenon described somewhat unimaginatively as ‘ladette culture' means that sculling drinks, getting wasted in public, and being cheered on by your mates for drunken bad behaviour is no longer left to the boys. While men are still binge drinking at higher rates than women, the girls are catching up, as rates for blokes are slowing, or, in some age groups, declining. Between 2002 and 2009, the proportion of Victorian women aged 16 to 24 who had knocked back 20 drinks in one sitting on at least one occasion in the previous year jumped from 15 per cent to 32 per cent. Across all ages, the number of Victorian women charged with alcohol-related family-violence offences jumped from 27 per year in 2000–01 to 147 in 2009–10, while over the same period, their rate of emergency-department presentations for intoxication increased at more than twice the rate of men, leaping from 785 a year, to 1874. Researchers talk of an emerging ‘badge of honour' mentality, where some young women celebrate extreme drunkenness, aggression, and violence as signs that they're keeping up with the boys. It's good that the pub trade has moved past the days where the only women allowed in bars were the ones pouring the beer, but it's a sad indictment on our culture that the quest for sexual equality means some young women feel compelled to drink so much they end up in hospital, or become so aggressive they're arrested for getting into fights or, more worryingly, as police are increasingly reporting, for glassing incidents.