Special-purpose legislation to protect Adelaide live music venue Crown & Anchor (aka the Cranker) passed the South Australian House of Assembly on Wednesday (August 28).
It will now move to the Legislative Council for further debate in the first week of September.
The new law not only secures the long-term future of the Crown and Anchor as a live music venue but further as a hotel which cannot be demolished or built over. Its current land use as a hotel and live music venue is preserved.
It also protects key live music venues in the City of Adelaide—including the Governor ‘The Gov’ Hindmarsh, the Grace Emily, Lions Arts Factory, Casablanca, and Marquee Room—against noise complaints from future residents.
Just which of the venues will get such protection will be decided solely by Planning Minister Nick Champion. He told Parliament this week that he had not drawn up the list yet.
Minister Champion introduced the bill as three-fold. He explained to colleagues, “It preserves a hotel so that generations to come will be able to use it as a place to congregate.
“(Secondly) it provides that the Minister can prescribe in a notice other live music venues so that residential development within 60 metres must be developed with noise attenuation measures.
“(Thirdly) it significantly increases the supply of student accommodation in the Adelaide CBD, which will assist to alleviate the pressure on the private housing rental market by supporting housing diversity.”
Cheered
The session was watched and cheered on from the House of Assembly gallery by the Save The Cranker group. Its lobbying included filling the gallery of the Adelaide Town Hall and Legislative Council as the venue’s future was debated.
Save the Cranker Director of Strategy Patrick Maher maintained that while the group had won its mission to save the venue, “Our work is not finished.
“We will explore ways of working with others to protect and support the continuity of the Cranker’s culture and community through this phase of transition.
“We will also act as watchdogs over the changes to the Cranker.”
Maher was one of those who co-wrote the song Save The Cranker with Zoe Sherriff, Bella Cufone and Dr Paul Oldham. Parts of it went:
Heritage, culture, community.
This is about you and me.
We march for love, hands off our pub.
Best pub in town, don’t tear it down.
Stand up, shout it, louder. Save the Cranker.
Shout it, louder. Save the Cranker.
Shout it, louder. Save the Cranker.
Shout it, louder….Save the Cranker.
In a smart strategic deal by the State Government earlier in August, it juggled the demands of music fans, the venue and developer Wee Hur Holdings Ltd.
Wee Hur applied in January to build a 19-story student housing block on the site. As part of the deal brokered by Labor Premier and live music tragic Peter Malinauskas, Wee Hur can inject a further $150 million into the project to increase it to 29 floors.
The trade-off was that the Cranker would close for two years (maximum) so it could build next door. By law, Wee Hur can partially demolish and restore the Crown & Anchor bandroom for soundproofing.
Support
Venue operator Tom Skipper thanked the live music community and Save The Cranker group for their hard work and support.
“The Crown and Anchor Hotel is a cornerstone of Adelaide’s cultural fabric, a place where our community gathers to celebrate creativity and camaraderie,” he said.
“The recent developments have tested our resilience, but they have also underscored the immense value that our community places on this institution.”
However Skipper now has the problem of finding a new site to shift to for two years from the first half of 2025. He insisted there was no way the venue or its 71 staff could sustain for that long without trading.
Both the government and Save The Cranker have offered to help. Fans have suggested the vacant Producers Hotel, also in Grenfell Street 200 metres away, a popular 750-capacity bandroom in the 1980s and 1990s with a 1 am licence, also known as the Old Exchange Hotel and Producers Club.
But after being empty since 2018, it’s being turned into a drug and alcohol centre for the Federal Government.
Of the amending of the law to protect other music venues from noise complaints to the entire CBD, Maher called it “an absolute boon”.
He told InDaily: “We’re really happy about that because live music is not restricted to those traditional entertainment zones; it’s something that happens in any pub, it’s something that can happen in a wine bar, it happens in fringe venues.
“The fact that the entire city is protected now, and any venue within that zone can apply to be protected by these new noise attenuation regulations, is fantastic.”
