‘It’s not a ban’ says boys’ club

Tom McFeely is unapologetic for seeking an anti-discrimination exemption for his Melbourne gay club to refuse entry to heterosexuals and lesbians.

The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal granted a three-year exemption for the Peel Hotel last week accepting McFeely’s claim that gay men felt uncomfortable with the number of heterosexuals and lesbians in the venue.

When it came to the stage where a gay guy can feel uncomfortable in a gay club, that’s when I felt I needed to do something about it, McFeely told the Sydney Star Observer.

McFeely has run the Peel in Collingwood for 13 years and said, despite some media reports, fear of violence was not the motivation.

We don’t really get any violence at the Peel. Historically the only violence has come from lesbians, particularly when they start fighting around the pool table, he said.

It does make gay guys uncomfortable. That’s partly why I also put lesbians in this exemption.

But McFeely says he doesn’t want to exclude heterosexuals and lesbians completely.

I think the media has misconstrued the decision. It’s not a ban. It’s a limiting of the numbers, he said.

We’ve always been clear that the target is gay men. We still welcome everybody else but that’s our target market. If I feel that there are too many straight people and lesbians, then I can legally say, sorry, not tonight, come back next week.

Nobody likes to go to a club and be told, sorry, regulars only, when you know that’s a crock of shit. I’d rather be honest with people and tell them why we’re not letting them in.

Stephen Craddock from Sydney’s Slide Bar agreed that gay venues do need to keep their gay patrons in the majority.

We are a gay bar on the colourful strip of Oxford Street. We open our doors but we also need to keep it balanced. We try to keep it 80/20 gay, but it depends on the night, Craddock said.

But we’re not interested in an exemption. As long as people are well behaved, they’re welcome.

Other NSW gay clubs and bars contacted by the Star all said they would not pursue exemptions.

Aly M, female co-convenor of Victorian Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby, said the ruling should be supported for the precedent of providing a safe space for a particular identity.

The anti-discrimination acts, regardless of which state, are there to promote equal opportunity and allow people the dignity of life and freedom from discrimination.

M said she understood that members of the community might be upset at the exclusion of lesbians, but explained that every identity needs their own space, even gay men.

Understandably the VGLRL wants to protect everyone regardless of sexual identity, but no single ruling can help everyone. The Tribunal obviously saw the Peel as a place set up for gay men, not for GLBTIQ, she said.

If you were going into a women’s club or a dyke night, you would just expect a hundred women and, say, 10 men. You wouldn’t expect it to be 50/50.

M said there was a lot of confusion about why McFeely would choose to take this action, but she felt he was doing it for the right reasons.

I’ve been down there and seen hens’ nights as well. If there were regular influxes of groups of women or bucks’ nights overtaking the dancefloor and making the regular patrons feel uncomfortable, you can understand why he might have been concerned.

M praised the Tribunal member Cate McKenzie for following the spirit of the law, rather than the letter.

VCAT doesn’t hand out exemptions easily. It’s not that common. So we’ve had people calling, worried about what will happen now, [wondering] will bars ban gay people. But it’s very carefully thought out.

The view was shared by May Miller-Dawkins from the NSW Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby board, who also felt the legal recognition of safe spaces outweighed the loss to certain members of the community.

No one club or bar could satisfy everyone or serve everyone’s needs. There are a lot of different identities in our community, so there might need to be separate spaces for those identities, Miller-Dawkins said.

I don’t think lesbians want venues to get legal exemptions to be lesbian-only.

That said, there could always be more spaces for lesbians and there are a lot of lesbians in Sydney who want more choice in where they can socialise with other lesbians, she said.

Another Melbourne gay bar, the Laird, had previously been granted a men only exemption in 1998 under the previous tribunal system in 1998, but it made no reference to sexuality.

In NSW, Bodyline Spa and Sauna is the only venue to have a gay men only exemption, also granted in 1998.