page_title: 2010 Melbourne live music rally
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: 2010 Melbourne live music rally / Background
caption_attribution_description: English: Panorama of the rally at the Tote Hotel on January 17, 2010. Image comprised of 4 photographs taken by Nick carson on January 17, 2010.
context_page_description: The 2010 Melbourne live music rally, was a public rally held on 23 February 2010, in the central business district of Melbourne, Australia. The rally was an act of protest against effects of liquor licensing laws on live music venues in the city. Attendance was estimated at 10,000 to 20,000 by the Australian Broadcasting Commission.
context_section_description: The Tote Hotel, located in the inner-city Melbourne suburb of Collingwood, closed in January 2010, due to the owners' inability to continue payments related to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT)'s regulations that deemed live music venues that opened beyond 1am "high risk". Since the owners, brothers Bruce and James Milne—officially the "licence nominees" of the premises—purchased the establishment in 2001, the most profitable segment of its opening hours has been between 1am and 3am. The Tote was classified alongside mainstream nightclubs on King Street located in the city's central business district (CBD), receiving the label a "high-risk" venue.
  The classification "high-risk" was determined by new conditions that were reported by ABC radio on 20 January 2014. According to the new regulatory framework, all venues playing live or amplified music after 1pm were classified as "high-risk" and must employ two security guards from two hours prior to a live performance until two hours after its completion. The new laws were designed to curb so-called "alcohol fuelled violence" in Melbourne's CBD area.
  In a January 2010 interview with the Age newspaper, Bruce Milne stated, 27 years after the building was first erected, "I have simply run out of money. Every effort I have made, which have been reasonable, sensible compromises, have fallen on deaf ears." VCAT's ongoing receipt of the venue's liquor licence fees led to the maintenance cost of the Tote increasing by 500 per cent and Milne explained, "We don't have a long-term lease and the fees have come to a head in the last few days. I just can't afford to keep fighting." Regulations that were initially aimed at curbing alcohol-fuelled violence were impeding upon the Tote's ability to survive even though Bruce Milne stated that he had not witnessed violence at the venue in nine years. Additionally, a local police sergeant said to the media in 2010 that the Tote was "not one of our trouble spots in the area."
  A social networking group was created in opposition to the closure of the venue and on the evening of 14 January 2010, a rally was organised to protest at the venue. On 17 January 2010, a crowd of between 2,000 and 5,000 rallied outside the venue. At the time of the protest outside of the Tote, Christopher Morris, a majority shareholder in the group that owns the building that housed the Tote, explained in regard to the legislative attempt to prevent violence: "Sometimes the cost of security would be more than they'd actually take over the bar."
caption: The rally at the Tote, 17 January 2010
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