General News
13 February, 2023
Highland Society forced to close doors early due to poor patron behaviour
Following a raft of antisocial incidents, the Maryborough Highland Society’s management has made the hard decision to amend the opening hours of its much frequented sports bar — with the spot set to close two hours earlier than usual. As per the...
Following a raft of antisocial incidents, the Maryborough Highland Society’s management has made the hard decision to amend the opening hours of its much frequented sports bar — with the spot set to close two hours earlier than usual.
As per the revised timings, the Highland Society’s Sports Bar will close at 11 pm instead of 1 am on Fridays and Saturdays, as part of a move aimed at prioritising the safety of the venue’s customers and staff members.
“We’ve decided to close early mainly due to the behaviour of some of our patrons. Over the last few months, it seems that the same people, quite a number of patrons, just sneak in and when they’re caught out and asked to leave, they proceed to abuse the staff,” Maryborough Highland Society general manager Malcolm Blandthorn said.
“Unfortunately we can’t leave our staff in a situation where they’re quite vulnerable. Doesn’t matter where you work, no staff member deserves that.”
While the early closure has come with a cost for the Society, Mr Blandthorn said that the measure had to be taken to control unfavourable behaviour.
“The board really had no other choice than to do this. We have a number of banned patrons but none of them to seem to care and they come in and cause a few issues,” he said.
“Some people come in late at night and are able to get past our security, they do a very good job but it’s very hard to monitor everyone especially when we have a good 100-150 people in on a Friday or Saturday night.
“It’s not great financially for the Society but we do have high priorities concerning the safety of our staff.”
At the moment, the board has no plans to reinstate previous opening hours — while they remain hopeful, the decision would depend on how patrons behave over the next few weeks.
“Right now we can’t be guaranteed of our staff’s safety and people being abused,” Mr Blandthorn said.
“We do hope to be able to go back to that one o’clock closing somewhere along the line, but it’s just going to be the behaviour of the patrons in between now and then, which will be the deciding factor on whether we get back there or not.
“It’s a very tough situation that we’re in, and it’s a very tough call, I understand for those that do the right thing. However, this is the frustration that the staff, the management and the board are feeling.”
Noting the community’s disappointment over the new timings, Mr Blandthorn is calling on all patrons to take action if they notice any unwanted behaviour in the venue.
“All we really want is for people to be able to come and enjoy. If they see somebody being a little antisocial, let the security and staff know so we can do something about it before it becomes a bit too much,” he said.
“Look after each other while you’re here and while we’ve got a lot of staff it’s hard to keep an eye on absolutely everybody — so the sooner people can let us know that they’ve seen something not quite right, the sooner we can do something about it.
“There is no timeline at this point in time for when we go back to normal but it comes down to the behaviour we see over this period of time.
“People can have fun and still be responsible but it’s a few bad apples that have forced our hand on this decision.”