Anti-gay police raid at Tasty nightclub

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 21 June 2023

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the early hours of 7 August 1994, police raided Tasty, a gay nightclub in downtown Melbourne, Australia. On the hunt for drugs they strip-searched more than 450 people in a raid that lasted hours. Many people felt what happened was homophobic and that the police had abused their powers. Some of those searched took legal action. Damages were awarded and years later Victoria Police gave a formal apology. Gary Singer who was in Tasty when the raid happened and was the organiser of the class-action lawsuit tells Alex Collins about how his night out on the town went from joy to despair once the police entered the club. (Photo: People being searched by police in Tasty)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service with me, Alex Collins.
0:18.0	I'm taking you back to 1990s Australia when a police raid at a gay nightclub
0:24.0	led to more than 400 men and women being stripped searched.
0:31.0	I've been speaking to Gary Singer, whose fun night turned into a horror show.
0:38.0	It's the 6th of August 1994.
0:46.0	It's approaching midnight.
0:48.0	And Gary and his friends are at Tasty Nightclub in downtown Melbourne.
0:56.0	They've been dancing for hours.
1:00.0	Suddenly the music stopped and all the lights came on in the club everywhere.
1:06.0	And there was policemen in uniform running around saying,
1:11.0	this is a raid, this is a raid.
1:13.0	And put your hands up against the wall, stop talking, don't talk to anyone.
1:18.0	Put your hands up against the wall, those people in the middle of the room,
1:21.0	put your hands on your head and be quiet.
1:25.0	The night it started much more quietly.
1:28.0	We met up with a group of friends, four of us, to have dinner at a restaurant called François,
1:33.0	to the French restaurant.
1:35.0	And over dinner we had a conversation and thought we'd had a few drinks.
1:40.0	We thought it'd be lovely to go to taste.
1:43.0	We'd heard about it.
1:44.0	It was the flavour of the month at the time.
1:48.0	And we just wanted to be there.
	...

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