Aboriginals bust up hotels

Press, 12 January 1987, Page 8

Aboriginals bust up hotels

NZPA-AAP Brisbane Rioting Aboriginals caused ' at least sAustlo,ooo ($12,500) damage to the south Queensland border town of Goondiwindi on Saturday afternoon; Barmaids at the Victory Hotel said the half-hour incident was frightening. “There were about 130 of them. They came in and smashed the till, all the bar stools and most of the glasses and all the windows,” one barmaid said yesterday. The hotel licencee, Peter Shakespeare, said: “Twenty-two car loads of Aboriginals came into town from across the border about half-past one and went on a rampage.” Extra police were called in. “Hotel patrons huddled

in the corner trying to protect themselves from flying glass, billard balls and stools,” said Mr Shakespeare. Preliminary estimates of damage to the hotel were put at more than sAustsooo. A barmaid said one Aboriginal had thrown a shopping trolly through a nearby shop window. The group then converged on the Royal Hotel down the road, where they repeated their assault before driving out of town. Mr Shakespeare said the trouble stemmed from an Aboriginal being ordered from the Victory Hotel’s Friday night disco. “In the 18 months I’ve been here I’ve never refused a drink to an Aboriginal who behaves. But anyone who doesn’t, black or white, is ordered out,” he said. The town’s Mayor, Bill Lee, blamed the incident on “a young, hothead element of the Toomelah settlement' in New South Wales.” Race relations in the township of about 4000 were normally harmonious, he said. “Blacks and whites get on fairly well together and older members of the Aboriginal community would be just as horrified as I am about the incident,” said Mr Lee.