IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT
Great news!
The boycott of the Birmingham Hotel has been a success!
The venue held its last gigs on February 9 & 16, 2008 (featuring The Beefeaters, Bulldog Spirit, Napalm Hearts and The Worst) and closed its doors in late March/early April.
The better news is that the venue has re-opened under NEW MANAGEMENT.
Many thanks to the literally thousands of people from all walks of life who've expressed support for the boycott, and to the dozens of bands, political, social and community organisations and networks who also worked to support the boycott and to spread the word. Hopefully, a strong message has been sent to venue proprietors across Melbourne that providing a platform for neo-Nazis is a really bad idea!
Boycott The Birmy
The Birmingham Hotel (located at 333 Smith Street, Fitzroy, on the corner of Johnston and Smith Streets) hosted the annual ‘Ian Stuart Donaldson’ memorial gig on September 23rd, 2006, organised by two local neo-Nazi groups Blood & Honour Australia and the Southern Cross Hammerskins, and under its current management has hosted similar events over the course of the last 10 years.
Please consider joining the boycott by:
1) Not drinking or playing gigs there;
2) Contacting the owners to let them know why;
3) Contacting Yarra Council to register your opposition to the existence of a neo-Nazi venue in Melbourne;
4) Contacting the Liquor Licensing Board. License-holders have a legal obligation not to detract from the ‘amenity’ of the area in which the venue is located. What is amenity? “For the purposes of the Liquor Control Reform Act 1998, the amenity of an area is the quality that the area has of being pleasant and agreeable.†You can lodge an objection by: writing to the Director of Liquor Licensing, GPO Box 4304, Melbourne, VIC, 3001, or emailing [email protected] Objections are treated as public documents and full details of the objection are provided to the applicant. Read more about lodging an objection in the Objections to Liquor Licensing Applications Fact Sheet [PDF] ;
5) Alerting others to the pub’s history and encouraging them to join the boycott.
For more information, please see the Boycott the Birmingham blog.