Melbourne CBD Now Just One Perpetual Protest And Ten Thousand Vape Shops

CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT

Once viewed as the nation’s nightlife and dining capital, the city of Melbourne is now just one giant town square full of people with megaphones and flags.

So many flags.

A recent reported conducted by the hospitality lobby group, Licensing Inquiries and Testing For Australian Management (LitFam), has found that Melbourne is now just one perpetual protest littered with roughly one thousand grey-market vape shops.

While the next few months are meant to be the most exciting time in Victoria – with the current AFL finals and Spring Horseracing Carnival soon after – it seems that majority of the state’s energy is still going into to protesting.

The comedy scene, theatre, and pub gigs are all suffering as a result of this unrelenting culture of marching the streets.

In Melbourne CBD, tens of thousands of Victorians from many different far-flung corners of the political spectrum have been effectively protesting every single day since Dan Andrews let these people out of their homes at the conclusion of sick 300 day experimented.

Anti-Immigration demonstrations, Sovereign Citizens, Anti-Fascists, Pro-Palestine and Indigenous rights groups all have their own marches seemingly every weekend.

While some of the rallies are defined by links to extremists, it seems most of them want the same thing. For things to be less shit and for the government to stop pretending things aren’t shit.

Aside from the Aboriginal protestors and their supporters who are specifically protesting against both police brutality and neo-Nazis assaulting their elders – most of the other marches appear to have a large cross-over in issues.

The cost-of-living crisis, housing crisis and political corruption are all front of mind. However, some people choose to blame Indian uni students for that, rather than billionaire property developers.

But while the late night al fresco cafes and pasta joints that once buzzed underneath fairy lights are closing down one by one, there is still a retail sector that glows.

The fruity Asian flavours of imported nicotine vapes, discreetly sold from the ever-growing number of brand new tobacconists in every 3rd or 4th shop front.

It seems that Melbourne’s CBD is so politically frustrated, economically depressed, and saturated in organised crime that it might soon become as cool as St Kilda used to be in the 1980s.