Others who opposed the laws claimed that they simply weren't a solution at all. Chief among their concerns was that the laws would either make people angry when the taps ran dry at 1.30am, or that violence would simply move elsewhere.



The chance of violence occurring at 3am - when all partygoers are suddenly pushed onto the streets - has been an ongoing fear.



The restrictions have pushed revellers to the city's outer suburbs, where locals say revellers clash with the area's LGBT community. At last weekend's Reclaim rally, thousands of inner-west residents took to the streets demanding changes to the laws, claiming alcohol-fuelled violence had simply been pushed out of the CBD and out of mind.



“Wanting to tackle violence is a worthy cause,” says Koh, “but these laws have not done that. They have moved alcohol-fuelled assaults to the eastern and inner-western suburbs, and because the curfew addresses the wrong end of the problem, the areas that have lockouts are still riddled with violence and sexual assaults.”

Some venues on King Street and Enmore Road in Newtown have enacted their own voluntary lockouts to keep the violence from their doorstep and other suburbs surrounding the city centre are also feeling the impact.

According to the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOSCAR), the likes of Surry Hills, Redfern and Pyrmont have recorded a rise in crime since the inception of the new laws. A review in early 2015 found assault rates had dropped by 40% in Kings Cross and 26% in the CBD, but had risen slightly near the Star casino, where the lockout laws do not reach.

If the problem is simply being spread further afield, can it really be claimed the laws have reduced violence, or have they simply pushed it out of the media spotlight?

Hospital admissions and violence rates have decreased in the regions that the laws have been applied to, but critics say that's simply because there are less people there. City of Sydney data recorded footpath congestion as being down 84% in some areas since the laws were introduced.