When Lismore DJ Big Furr (Rodrigo Aguilar) cancelled an upcoming event at the Civic Hotel because he was told by the venue manager he wasn’t allowed to play music anymore, it meant the end of a new way of living in a covid world.

So, The Lismore App decided to get to the bottom of this new world with no music or dancing and see what was happening in local pubs and what it meant for locals.

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No singing, dancing, mingling - but karaoke is ok

While restrictions relaxed in NSW for a while to allow small groups of 20 to book a venue, last Friday’s decree from the NSW Government changed the rules to venues having a maximum of 10 in a booking.

While the NSW Premier said dancing and singing were frowned upon, they were not actually prohibited. However, the changes to group booking numbers meant an end to potential gigs for many local musicians and DJs – including the Tropical Fruits event Fruity Fridays at the Civic.

“When my gig was cancelled, I through ‘oh no, not again’,” DJ Big Furr said. “This is what I do for a living. The government is clamping down and now, I’ve got to push back my gigs till something changes.”

“I’ve been a DJ for 20 years and before coronavirus, I had gigs every week - it’s meant a loss of a lot of income for me and I had to go onto Centrelink to pay the rent."

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Policing the singing rules

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the Government was working with the Australian Hotels Association (AHA) to create a safe environment for pubs and venues in NSW.

AHA director of liquor and policing John Green said singing and dancing are not actually prohibited, but there are additional planning rules around having karaoke and wind instruments.

“The rules state a singer must be three metres away from the audience [to minimise transmission of airborne saliva particles] and AHA has distributed this information to member organisations,” John said.

“A pub also needs to have a covid safety plan, have customers seated while consuming alcohol and comply with public health regulations.”

Is karaoke music?

Rodrigoz said over the past few weeks, he would play music that “wasn’t too high energy”.

“People could only sit down at tables, and I didn’t want the organisation to get stung by authorities if people danced.”

While the Civic Hotel has decided to can the music and potential dancing, the Northern Rivers Hotel in North Lismore still intends to hold regular karaoke nights. Some may argue that karaoke isn’t exactly music, but for others, a good singing session is considered good medicine.

Civic Hotel

Civic Hotel manager Dan Jenkins said stopping the live music was about not attracting attention to the pub.

“We can’t afford to get a 72 hour shut down and risk the owner’s licence as well – it’s just not worth it,” Dan said.

“And we can’t afford to pay to put a band on for ten people.

“So, we thought it’s safer to keep it as simple as possible so we can open up, serve meals and have few people dining.

“If the police do the rounds and someone pissy starts dancing, our business is on the line. It’s already hard enough to monitor and keep the pub sitting down and not mingling.

“The regulatory police are hammering the pubs right now, I don’t understand why they not going for shopping centres.

“All our glasses are cleaned and sanitised and we can monitor our cleaning ten times better than Woolies.

What about Woolies?

“People in a pub drinking don’t let go of that glass until they leave – how many people at Woolies have touched a packet of rice?"

Dan said he has been the manager at the Civic for 14 years and knows the pub generally pulls in an older crowd and not travellers. He said pubs like Mary Gs will have a harder time regulating social distancing as they pull a much younger crowd who wanted to party.

Travelling crowd

“I was in Surfers Paradise with my family recently and there were thousands of people on Cavil Avenue and we couldn’t move,” he said.

“Everything was open and people were shoulder to shoulder. I felt weird.”

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“So, here, we are doing what we can to keep the doors open and make sure it’s safe for everybody.”

So, if not having a DJ or live music puts people off coming to the pub and potentially dancing, that’s what the Civic Hotel intends keep on doing.