Perth Voice Interactive

NEIGHBOURS who don’t like smashed bottles, yelling and drunks peeing on their property have thwarted a bid by Mt Hawthorn’s Pirate Bar to extend weeknight opening hours to midnight.

Vincent council this week unanimously rejected the application, with mayor John Carey saying the small bar should never have been approved in the first place.

Last year his council allowed it to open but restricted its hours.

The Pirate appealed the restrictions to the powerful but unelected WA state administrative tribunal, which extended weekend hours to midnight Fridays and Saturdays.

Pirate Bar captain Paul Mavor says closing at 10pm school nights “has caused significant frustration and dissatisfaction amongst patrons on a regular basis”. He adds many customers live nearby.

But next-door neighbour Laura fronted the council to say she and her partner had been excited to move into the area pre-Pirate and had “invested hundreds of thousands of dollars to make it the perfect home”.

The bar has introduced “noise, litter [and] unacceptable antisocial behaviour by drunk patrons,” she says, including smashed bottles, yelling, and this week a drunk urinated on her boundary wall.

“I don’t think the bar that opened was the bar we were promised,” Cr Josh Topelberg says, noting it hadn’t scored the “runs on the board” to earn later hours.

Councillors suspect the owners will appeal the rejection to the SAT.

by DAVID BELL