Popular Sydney Venue To Operate Under New Trial After 24-hour License Denied

Sydney venue SLYFOX will continue operating under new trading hours following ongoing licensing issues. 

Last month, the venue's owners shared that they were allegedly at risk of closure and now the venue's operating hours will now change following a meeting with both the Inner West Council and a Planning Panel earlier this week. 

The venue will now trade under a 12am license with a 3am closure trial in place following the submission and approval of new management plans.

"In 1998 the SLYFOX was granted a 24hr license with a 1 year trial period. The owners at the time never re-applied for the license after the 1 year period," they shared via a Facebook post at the time. "SLYFOX continued trading for 21 years following this, unbeknownst to council, the police or the current owners that the 24hr licence had lapsed." 

"Council and the Planning Panel were assessing a development application for 24-hours a day, seven days a week trading," said the Inner West Council in a statement to The Music. 

"The Independent Planning Panel approved a two year trial period on trading between midnight and 3am, pending submission and approval of a Plan of Management.

"The Independent Local Planning Panel imposed a number of relatively standard requirements regarding the Plan of Management in the conditions of approval. These are mostly concerned with protecting the amenity of neighbouring residences and dealing with complaints. Management Plans are a standard requirement for licensed premises in Sydney.

"There are a number of noise limits which the SLYFOX will need to ensure it complies with, including during its trial period. The acoustic engineer for the hotel assured the Planning Panel that this was possible up until 3am, but had not done any testing to ensure this was possible after 3am."

SLYFOX's owners are yet to respond to publicly since the meeting but did share a post via Facebook prior to, saying "Council has recently submitted their final report for the planning panel meeting & unfortunately it’s incredibly bias to their own objective with them recommending new trading hours of 12 midnight with a 3am trial, effectively shutting the SLYFOX down."

"Council has CHOSEN TO IGNORE ALL 2000 of the public submissions of support – stating in their report 'a significant number of submissions were received “ostensibly”' in support of the application." See the full post below.

The Music has reached out to SLYFOX for comment.