The Lame Duck — Restaurant in Melbourne

If this club has a protocol for handling drink spiking, it clearly needs urgent improvement.

We witnessed a man spike a woman's drink and immediately reported it to security. The expectation when reporting such a disturbing incident is that our safety will be prioritised, and the threat will be removed—especially since this was not an assumption, but something that was actually witnessed

However, instead of removing the individual responsible, he was allowed to stay on the middle of the dancefloor for a prolonged period of time, with his friends able to make further inappropriate comments like, 'Well, just drop something in my drink and we’ll be even.' Instead, the witnesses and the victim were made to feel so uncomfortable that they left, and the manager even came outside to shout in the face of the person who first reported it.

Additionally, your claim that our friend 'threatened physical violence' is both misleading and inaccurate. Firstly, they didn't. Secondly, the situation was escalating due to the lack of action on the club’s part, and it is troubling that your response to a serious safety issue was to focus on an unrelated allegation of violence rather than addressing the perpetrator directly.

You claim that you immediately remove individuals who make patrons unsafe, yet it seems that this only applies to when there is a threat of physical violence, as the man who spiked a drink was allowed to stay on the premises—on the dancefloor—long after the incident was reported.

This raises a clear contradiction: if the club’s priority is to ensure safety by removing dangerous individuals immediately, why was this serious safety issue treated with so much less urgency than an alleged threat of violence?

In conclusion, drink spiking is a serious threat, and it’s incredibly concerning and sad that the club failed to handle this situation with the urgency and seriousness...

Turned up to the bar to enjoy a night of karaoke in the city (I’m from the country), only to be turned away and told by the bouncer that he isn’t letting me in. When I asked why, he only said “it’s a bar policy to not allow guys in on their own”. I wasn’t rude or anything, I’d had absolutely nothing to drink beforehand and wasn’t staggering or anything. I was extremely disappointed and if this is a policy, it’s certainly not advertised on your website. And were that the case, I’d not have bothered to make the trip into the bar after hearing other rave reviews about the karaoke night! Personally, I felt the bouncer didn’t want to let me in for his own reasons. More racist and discriminatory than anything. I did also attempt to message via your Facebook page, with zero response. Extremely disappointed with the lack of response and the disgusting behaviour of your bouncer. I can’t recommend this place any less after that as my first experience at even trying to visit. The Lame Duck, very lame indeed!

• UPDATE * Confirmed by the business that it is a policy to not allow men on their own in, they put it down to predatory behaviour. And instead of addressing the actual problem, they just blanket rule banned any guy on their own from coming in. Pretty disappointing and disgusting behaviour when I’ve noticed other reviews here stating that same predatory behaviour towards female patrons is coming from some of their bouncers. Fix the actual issue here, don’t paint banning potential patrons as a solution because you can’t be bothered to fix the real problem. Get better bouncers that actually do their job and don’t harass your female patrons. And stop the...

I would give it 0 stars but that’s not possible, can’t say we ever got the pleasure of entering the venue as we were turned away at the door. Bouncer spoke to us about our night asking lots of questions then proceeded to ask for our IDs only once he’d seen all the IDs he said it was a ‘25 and over’ bar and one person of the 3 of us was 23 (the others 28 and 29) so we couldn’t get in. Nowhere is this advertised on the website or outside, I am not convinced it is a real policy I think the bouncer was playing malicious games. We went in next door and spoke to the bouncer there who was lovely and quote on quote was confused as to why we didn’t get in ‘because you guys are completely fine!’. For context we had been out for dinner and were not intoxicated, very disappointing given we had got a long Uber ride to get there. Please check in with this bouncer and educate him on his ability to properly do his job without discrimination, if he is making up this policy or enforcing it only when he feels like it that is unacceptable. We have numerous friends who have visited this venue under the age of 25...