Culture

This Police Horse Inside A Bondi Pub Is Mike Baird’s Sydney Taken To Its Logical Conclusion

Presumably the bartender was in trouble for not serving beer in a bubble-wrapped sippy cup while wearing a crash helmet or something.

by Alex McKinnon  4 April 2016

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Between the lockout laws, the proliferation of sniffer dogs at music festivals, bizarre stipulations for pubs and clubs, moralising PR disasters like Stoner Sloth and punitively harsh fines against cyclists, the general vibe that Sydney’s turning into a retirement home bingo tournament has become pretty entrenched over the last few years. Premier Mike Baird has long since fallen from cool-dad grace to #CasinoMike infamy, and his Victorian counterpart Daniel Andrews is making political hay by riffing on the myriad ways in which Melbourne’s nightlife now leaves Sydney’s in the dust.

All of which adds a certain poetic significance to this photo snapped by local writer Jonno Seidler as he drove past Bondi’s Beach Road Hotel on Sunday. Normally the sight of a horse physically inside a pub would prompt thousands on thousands of dads to crash through the ceiling screaming “WHY THE LONG FACE?”, but in contemporary Sydney it’s more likely this police horse is in the middle of writing up the bartender for not serving beer in a bubble-wrapped sippy cup while wearing a crash helmet or something.

Some of the punters were actually quite chuffed to suddenly have a horse lurking around their $19 fish and chips, but for people further afield, seeing a police horse get up in a bar and grill’s bar and grill is pretty indicative of Mike Baird’s Sydney. 

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Feature image via Jonno Seidler/Instagram.