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| partying on the wharf |
Much consternation today during a Melbourne Cup lunch at the uber smart Otto's Ristorante on the Cowper Street Wharf in Wooloomooloo
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Every restaurant on the wharf strip was packed to the gills with party goers. Inside at the Blue Hotel a Cup lunch for the Pink Ribbon breast cancer charity was underway.
Every restaurant on the wharf strip was packed to the gills with party goers. Inside at the Blue Hotel a Cup lunch for the Pink Ribbon breast cancer charity was underway.
The Melbourne Cup really is the 'race that stops a nation' as the first Tuesday of November becomes a defacto public holiday. But one girl doing a rousing business on the wharf today was stopped in her tracks by the police.
The leopard print clad lady was a bookmaker-or so the punters thought. She had taken thousands of dollars before the cops appeared at Otto's and demanded she cease doing business or be arrested for illegal gambling along with those placing bets. She was soon returning bets placed while the startled punters were told they would half to walk half a mile to a TAB Betting Shop if they wished to place a bet on the great race.
For a while we thought we had plunged back to the heady days pre-1980 when illegal SP bookies ran the show and operated at your local pub or from the back seat of a car.
In those days the only police involvement was when a senior cop phoned ahead to the bookie to tell him what time a raid would occur. For a tidy donation to his retirement fund of course !
