Byron’s image being trashed

Chris Hanley, Byron Bay

Byron Bay has the third highest alcohol-related violence in NSW and this problem will not go away.

Byron Bay is a beautiful place.

It seems incongruous to be talking about the same town but we are. Our reputation both in Australia and overseas is being trashed.

Since the entire region was turned upside down last New Years Eve a committed and hard-working group of local people have researched the issue of alcohol-fuelled violence in other communities and have discovered that there are concrete measures that we can implement to restore the equilibrium within our town.

Right now all of us are being affected by the alcohol-fuelled violence that is primarily preventable.

Jobs are being lost because people are not investing in this region. Families are not visiting our town because they feel threatened and unsafe and, as for our own youth, they also do not feel secure on our streets after midnight.

We commend the liquor outlets who have recognised that we have serious problems but we now know that only a raft of real and compulsory measures can and will allow our community to stop being known and one of the most violent in the state.

The existing mild and non-compulsory measures adopted by some of the local liquor outlets will not work.

We need all of your support on August 24 at the BBCC at an information afternoon.

The speakers will provide evidence-based data from all over the country that will show that united communities that proactively seek a solution to alcohol–fuelled violence can, through serious and proven methods, lower the violence in their towns.

There are solutions to the violence in our community. All over Australia other communities are facing the same challenges but there are few communities in this country more capable or more passionate than ours in mobilising their energies and resources to collaboratively solve this critical issue.

Please join us.