Ric's Bar in the Valley has also fielded a number of complaints threatening its role as a live music venue where up and coming bands have a chance to wow an audience, get noticed, make a living.
Staff writer Don Gordon-Brown headed down to the Valley hotspot to sound out what all the fuss was about.

Doing a runner at Rics

It's early on a Friday night and I'm approaching Ric's Bar fast and with a fearful thirst – for knowledge.
Someone I trust implicitly has just told me that Ric's is so fed up with the on-going noise battle that it's quitting the live music scene and is going to be refurbished as an Irish bar.
My mate swears that the new venue is going to be called Ric O'Sheas.
Now Brisbane needs another Irish pub like I need another hole in my penis head, so it's paramount that I get in there quickly and clear this tragedy up once and for all with Rics management.
That, and have one final cleansing ale to finish what's been a very pleasant afternoon of research at various other Valley learning centres.
I swing right under between the umbrellas and the usual sweet young faces confront me.
That's the thing about Ric's on a Friday night. It pays to be out of there fairly early. By late night, there's so many young people in there, all aged between 18 and 18 and a day, that a poor old bloke can sometimes feel like he's overseeing an overcrowded creche.
At the door way, I'm stopped in my tracks by the bouncer, a young bloke in tight black t-shirt.
"I'm sorry, mate, but you can't come in here," he says, muscly arm outstretched.
Why not, I bleat. It's Friday night. This is Rics so I must be here.
You're not dressed properly, he says.
At this point, I must describe what I'm wearing. I'm sporting my best shirt, a blue and exclusive short-sleeved number from the House of Fabiani. My jib-cutting shorts are a cream-coloured creation of the Heavy Water fashion house. You've probably heard of them.
Short but, dare I say it, trendy socks and my well-worn but lovable New Balance 606 runners complete what I believe to be a fairly nifty outfit. This seems to be confirmed by the once-overs and side glances I'm getting from some of the seated pretties on Blackshirt's flanks.
I'm a fashion plate, for fuck's sake, and his jibe at my attire could easily have made me angry.
"Do you know who the fuck I am," I'm tempted to ask. It has been a long day and while I'm pretty sure I know who I am, some independent corroboration wouldn't hurt.
Instead, I take a punt and just tell him what I believe my first name to be. He tells me his, and while we seem to be getting on fabulously, he still insists I'm still not dressed properly.
I turn obediently away – fashion police have always had that effect – and dissolve into the darkness.
A quick trip up Brunswick Street to the Bug office to get a notebook, pen and the Bug's state of the art non-digital camera, and I'm backing confronting Blackshirt.
I've checked the licence in my wallet and, armed with the exact knowledge of who I am now and always have been, I reintroduce myself to the bouncer. I tell him I'm back as a working journalist and I'm going to write a story on what appears to be new dresscode requirements at the venue.
"And your name was?" I ask, pen poised.
He pulls up his identification tag, 447, and says: "Write it down, mate."
"Come-on," I reply, "you were happy to tell me your name before. Why won't you tell me now?"
"I don't recall it, mate."
At this point, I just want to declare how amazingly quickly such banter can degenerate into hostility.
Blackshirt refuses to answer my question about what dresscode he has been asked to enforce and very quickly I'm getting the "there's no need to be belligerent, sir" line.
It must be part of their training. These fascist fashion police/venue bouncers act like real smartarses, and as soon as you query their attitude, you're the one with the problem.
It's just a short trip to the next stage, where Blackshirt is informing me that this is private property, I've been told to move on and if I don't do so, action will be taken.
Now I don't take lightly to being threatened by some young thug who thinks standing in front of a venue with a name tag gives him the authority to threaten anyone, let alone an award-winning*, working journalist.
For Blackshirt's information now (seeing I didn't make the point at the time), my guess is that the couple of metres outside Rics doorway is a public thoroughfare, and if I want to, I could stand there all fucking night hopping on one leg and whistling showtunes if that takes my fancy. I've got an Oliver medley in mind.
We engage in a short "if you don't know why you can't come in that's you problem" standoff and then he finally tells me it's my runners.
I walk out into the mall proper and take some pictures of the types of young things that Blackshirt has no problems with.
That's an ashen -faced me (at right) pondering my fate outside my beloved Ric's.
Can't show you a photo of Blackshirt because everytime I raised my camera in his direction, he ducked inside the venue. Must be something in his parole conditions that doesn't allow him to be photographed
The other photo (left) is of a young thing just coming out of Ric's with, unless I'm very much mistaken, a couple of Cascade ales – and, hold on, wearing what looks remarkably like ....runners.
I've since been told they're trainers.. Now runners and trainers, I'm not sure of the difference. I'm not even sure why $100 runners are out, while cheap, coloured canvas deck shoes are in.
But enough about fashion.
Let's cut to the chase – and why The Bug in the past has had fun with other Valley venues and their fascist .... oops, I mean fashion ... police.
And how they screen patrons differently night to night with "sorry but it's alternate night". Or "Goth night". Or "in your case, sir, night, night".
More often than not, I suspect runners are just the convenient excuse. I've been rejected at similar venues in my Blunstones because it's an invitation-only fashion night – or some such wank.
Venues can try to tailor their clientele to some extent, and if Ric's on this particular Friday night wants only young people, that's their business. As Groucho Marx once said: I don't want to drink piss in any venue that doesn't want me to drink piss in it" or words to that effect..
All The Bug asks is for a little honestly in future.
This is how the conversation with Blackshirt should have gone.
Blackshirt: "I'm sorry, Sir, you can't come in here."
Me: Why not?
Blackshirt: You've had far too many.
Me: Beers?
Blackshirt: No. Years.
Me: Are you asking me to leave just 'cos I'm old and on my own?
Blackshirt: That's right, sir. You're old, balding and fat.
Me: But that guy there got in
Blackshirt: We had to let him in. He's the boss.
Me: So I can't come in under any circumstances?
Blackshirt: You might have stood a chance if you'd been accompanied by three or four young girls in skimpy shorts with their tits hanging out everywhere.
Me: That's terrible.
Blackshirt: I know. But that's the way it is, sir. Now please move on. You and your walking frame are blocking the way.

* Upgraded to Business-First twice in 1999 without even asking for it.