People in Brisbane are one step closer to having a bevvy atop the city’s famous bridge – but not everyone is cracking open the champagne.
The Brisbane city council has greenlit a plan that would allow the Story Bridge Adventure Climb company to seek a permit from alcohol regulators to serve alcohol to customers who scale the peaks of its steel trusses that rise 80 metres above sea level.
In a special council meeting – called only to discuss the matter – lord mayor Adrian Schrinner hit back at the “ludicrous debate and discussion” around the alcohol proposal which he characterised as “wowser stuff”.
“I’ve heard some commentators talking about people barfing off the bridge,” Schrinner said. “Well, I don’t know whether they can handle their alcohol or not, but after a single drink I don’t imagine people are barfing off the bridge.”
“We’re not talking about opening a bar on top of the bridge,” the mayor said. “We’re not talking about having bar flies sitting up there leering into people’s windows”.
Labor, Greens and an independent councillor raised concerns with how the issue was being managed and that the bridge itself was deteriorating but, in the end, the motion passed 16 votes in favour with six abstentions.
The proposal has sparked “what do you think?” headlines and drawn the ire of radio pundits in the river city.
“What’s going to happen if they decide to barf over the bridge and drop it into the middle of the traffic?” said 4BC Drive’s Gary Hardgrave.
“What if that etches the paint on your car? I’m just asking.”
Residents of nearby riverside apartment blocks above the bridge’s northern banks – long opposed to the northern bridge climb route approved by the council in 2021 – also raised concerns. The ABC reported one resident, Monica Dawkins, saying “the idea of people drinking alcohol and looking into her family home filled her with anxiety”.
Another resident, John Parker, said: “If you go on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, they breathalyse you, so to have alcohol mixed in with this just sounds immensely dangerous.”
The bridge climb company is owned by the Artemus Group, developers who in 2018 transformed the abandoned Howard Smith Wharves at the base of the bridge’s convict-carved cliffs into a heaving entertainment precinct, including the Felons Brewery. The company has plans for a major overhaul – including the construction of a nine-storey luxury hotel.
The Artemus chief executive, Luke Fraser, stressed that the proposal did not amount to a brewery on a bridge. “Our plan includes the option of toasting at the top of the climb with a Felons lager or champagne,” he wrote in an email.
“The safety of guests is always our top priority and we will continue to ensure guests do not exceed 0.05 blood alcohol level, as we have always done.”
So is the plan safe?
The director of Griffith University’s Safety Science Innovation Lab, Prof Sidney Dekker, hesitated only slightly before answering this question. He had not seen any planning documents – but was not alarmed by the concept.
“Yes, I am confident that, with appropriately identified and controlled risks, this can be done to an acceptably safe level,” he said.
Dekker, who is also a professional pilot and crisis chaplain, said there were lots of legally operating businesses and everyday activities across the state that “expose people to much greater risk”.
“I’d rather have a glass of bubbles on top of the bridge than ride a motorbike up and down Mount Tamborine in wet weather,” he said.
What about the director of the safety consultancy BWC Safety, Bernie Walker, whose motto is: “Safety doesn’t happen by accident”?
Sydney-based Walker was “surprised” to learn of the proposal. He climbed the Harbour Bridge as a customer and recalled a 45-minute safety briefing – in which “there was definitely no mention of drinking any alcohol”.
After a moment’s reflection, however, Walker said that with “the right protocols in place” the risk would be “manageable”.
“If it was a sip of champagne at the top of a bridge for a photo, I guess that wouldn’t be the end of the world,” he said. “I’m not sure I’d drink too much, but I’d stand there with a raised glass to celebrate the climb.
“There’s no harm in that.”
But the University of Queensland’s Dr Jie Wang said the greater risk might not be to prospective climbers but to the city’s image.
Wang’s team at the UQ school of business studies the relationship between risky behaviour and destination image in places like the Gold Coast and Bali, which often attract young party-goers and boozy holidaymakers.
“If you welcome more risky behaviour, that exchange can come at the cost of your image,” Wang said.
“People might assume: ‘This will not be the place I want to go.’”
While Wang said she would abstain from a tipple on top of the bridge, which she said was central to the city’s reputation, she would welcome a “healthy juice or non-alcoholic cocktail”.
