After months of pressure from Victorian union groups, the music industry and pub-goers, Melbourne’s historic John Curtin Hotel – aka the Curtin– will not be redeveloped. Instead, the overseas investor it recently sold to will re-lease the pub.
The 160-year-old watering hole, which sits on the city end of Lygon street, is a culturally significant site for Victorians. It’s been an incubator for live music, regarded by Victorian unions as an unofficial HQ, and frequented by former prime minister Bob Hawke.
Since a reported $5.08 million sale to Singapore-based investment group YY Property, according to The Age, the Victorian Trades Hall Council (VTHC) – across the road from the Curtin – has campaigned alongside unionists, local activists and Melbourne City Council to save the pub from redevelopment.
Bids to keep it trading have included a union-backed green ban – a kind of strike action unionised workers can take to protect sites from developments deemed culturally, socially or historically vandalistic – a push for heritage listing and a promise of a year’s worth of free Hawke’s beer should the pub be saved.
“It’s a fantastic win,” says VTHC secretary Luke Hilakari, congratulating the community activists, unionists and musos who came together to fight for the pub’s survival.
“I think the generations of people beforehand that have appreciated the John Curtin would be very pleased to see that this generation of activists have stood up for an important historical union venue,” he says.
Named after Australian politician John Curtin, who served as prime minister in the 1940s, The Curtin is a pub’s pub: casual, inexpensive and unashamedly dive-y in the best possible way. Thumping crowds have sold out its bandroom; business types, musos and students have drunk at its bar; and the city’s unionists have pulled a pew over a few pints.
This news is an important step towards ensuring the pub’s gritty, grimy glory lives on for years to come.
“It should send a message to every Victorian that if you’ve got a place that’s special, that you think should be protected, and if you’re willing to stand up for yourselves and with others, then you can get that job done,” Hilakari says.
“I can promise you, once this is done and dusted, there will be the biggest party Carlton has ever seen and we will be looking forward to sculling a few unionised beers.”
The pub’s current lease is up at the end of this month.
Additional reporting by Doosie Morris.
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