Alfredo hooked up a tarp as cover in the back area. But sometimes there’d be heavy downpours with no run-off. As it rained, the tarp would fill up with water, and this sagging bulbous water trap would hang perilously above 200 heads. So there were nights where every half hour or so it’d be myself or one of the Nicks or Monkey out the back standing on two milk crates with a broom trying to push the bottom of this bulbous mass of water off the side of the tarp. No one would ever leave, they’d just stand around and watch and cheer as all the water crashed over some poor sod who hadn’t gotten out of the way quick enough, pick their beers back up and keep drinking. People just didn’t give a shit and it was all part of the nature of St. Jerome’s.
Shit Town was a funny one because Jerome had spoken for years about extending the bar into the space next door, which was essentially our storeroom where we kept all our ice buckets to chill the beer. He’d wanted to do it for years and years, and I’d always been the voice that said, ‘nah, you can’t do it. Firstly, we need the space for storage, and secondly, you can’t open the doors because it’s going to fall apart. You’ll attract attention from the police, the fire department, licensing, everyone.’ I think it took him less than two months after I finally left to open it. No one else was there to tell him he couldn’t do it. He had it open for a couple of weeks, but sure enough everyone found out about it — the cops and licensing came and looked at it and said no, it’s so wrong.
When Shit Town opened they built this deadly little bar underneath the stairwell which was just a stack of milk crates with a board laying across the top and Amanda sitting with a bin full of beer behind her and another little box to take money in. She was sitting there one night in a torrential downpour with about 20 people still in Shit Town having a beer. There are leaks pouring down all around her, there’s water cascading down the stairwells, and she’s in this dilapidated old building that had no right to have people in it let alone a bar. And she sat there thinking to herself, ‘this is where I’m going to die. I’m going to be known as the girl who died working in the bar when Shit Town collapsed on her.’ That was going through her head for the entire shift. And she very well could have.
The fire department and licensing became pretty regular drop-ins after we’d been open a couple of years. The place was thumping and there were queues out the front every night. Security would either be myself or Kirk, after we realised the bar was well beyond capacity. Because the line was weaving down the laneway past the bins, obviously the cops would come wandering by. And many times they would come over, busting open the front door. ‘What are you guys doing? Is this allowed? Have you got too many people in here? Where’s your licence?’ And I’d pull this shitty little restaurant licence off the wall and hand it across to them and they’d just look at it and say, ‘what is this?’ ‘That’s the licence we’ve got for the venue. It doesn’t say that we need security. It doesn’t say that we have a maximum capacity, it doesn’t even put any real restrictions on us.’ They’d just look at me incredulously, ‘this is unbelievable! I don’t know how you guys are getting away with this?’ ‘Hey don’t blame me, I’m just minding the bar for the night.’
It was a bizarre little restaurant licence, but he got it approved under the assumption that he was going to open a bread and wine stall, a little café like the other million we’ve got in Melbourne’s laneways. Then with that licence he knocked the hole through the back wall. That wasn’t even part of the lease, it was just an area that we took over. The licence threw everyone off that walked into the venue — every cop, licensing agent —they couldn’t get their head around how we were operating on this stupid little licence and yet not do anything wrong, to its letter. They’d just look at it and go, ‘okay. Cool, good luck.’ I was really lucky in that I knew a few of the cops that were based in the Flinders Lane Police Station. This was going back in the days when you could get away with a lot of shit as a cop. A couple of the local cops would come in on the job and say, ‘chuck us a Coke would you?’ And there’d be a healthy shot of Bacardi in there as well to help them get through their night. There was always a bit of a ‘we’ll let you guys go, just treat us well when we come in’ type of thing.
And the amount of cops that loved it and would come in when they weren’t working helped us avoid a lot of real angry cops walking up to the door and saying, ‘we’re shutting you down!’
There was one time where the fire department did come in and say, ‘we’re shutting you down within the hour.’ It was over an issue with our exit signs. None of them were illuminated, all we had were boxes stuck to the gate with ‘EXIT’ stencilled on them. I spent the next 45 minutes running around Big W and Bunnings trying to find fluorescent globes, extension leads and cable ties, and spent 10 minutes sticking it all together. It was the most slap-dash piece of shit you’ve ever seen but they came back within the hour and said, ‘well it’s unorthodox, but I suppose it does the job. So as long as that’s permanently there I suppose it’s okay.’