Vale John Hemmes

Left :  John & Merivale Hemmes at the opening of the Mr Chow Restaurant
Sad news today that one of Sydney's legendary fashion figures John Hemmes has died at age 83. John and his wife Merivale once were the King & Queen of modern fashion in Australia.
Today their  son Justin Hemmes rules over a nightclub empire with some of Australia's most fantastic night spots from the Establishment to the Beresford Hotel in Surry Hills.
Whispers has a life long history with the Hemmes. At the tender age of 18 we were hired to run a shop owned by their fierce (but friendly) business rival David Sheinberg whose father owned Sydney's Imperial Arcade and a string of fashion stores that were in competition with The House of Merivale, over seen by Merivale Hemmes and which presented Aussies with the very latest overseas fashion. John was always asking us to join his firm and although we declined, we have remained friendly with the family for decades,

John Hemmes was born in Surabaya, Java, Indonesia- his parents were Dutch and he was imprisoned in a Japanese POW camp as a teen before arriving in Australia with little money. Over the next 30 years he and wife Merivale built up a fashion empire. Today son Justin has continued this entrepreneurial spirit with an enviable restaurant and nightclub empire that employs around 5000 people in premises designed by his sister Bettina.

Tales Of The City # 1

Adam Williams

When So You Think You Can Dance's Adam Williams posted a message on his Facebook page about the annoying $168 parking fine he picked up a few weeks ago after leaving his car at Taylor's Square for a just a few minutes, he identified a growing frustration that is building in the inner city of Sydney- and Lord Mayor Clover Moore could pay a price.

Word comes to the Shuttle that a group of Oxford Street businessmen on the Golden Mile between Whitlam Square and Paddington Town Hall are planning to actively oppose Moore's re-election plans and help drum up support for other candidates.

The business, nightclub and restaurant heart of Sydney  has been Clover Moore's domain as the MP for the Sydney electorate and as Lord Mayor. Her support comes from young professionals and the huge gay and lesbian community. But that support is waning with many disaffected voters viewing Moore as someone who is consolidating power for power's sake and pushing her unpopular ideas of how the city should be.

Clover Moore

One of those ideas-the ugly bike lanes that have sprung up all over the city leaving already narrow roads with even less space and ugly concrete barriers taking up even more space. They are hardly used except by a handful of cyclists.

To promote the lanes Moore took to a bike herself and promptly fell off and broke her wrist. Then it was discovered that she has not one, but two much coveted free car parking spots near the Town Hall.

That Moore's army of parking wardens are viewed as heavy handed is rubbing salt into the wounds. Drivers are paying exorbitant fines for a myriad of infractions. Evening parking limits of 2 hours are  believed to have driven out dozens of small in-expensive restaurants to outer regions leaving places like Kings Cross and Oxford Street, once pleasant dining areas depressingly sleazy with fast food outlets that become a haven for hundreds of drunks in the early hours.

The Golden Mile, Oxford Street is now deserted until around 10pm when thousands of teens flock to the many gay nightclubs and pubs. There is nothing in between.

The City Council's much vaunted plans for Taylor's Square that are trotted out almost yearly never materialise. International designers have been consulted and say Taylor's Square, on one of Sydney's major routes from the airport into the city via Oxford Street could become a broad boulevard reminiscent of the great cites with the square a haven for outdoor cafes and grand statues. Instead it gets dirtier, dustier and more depressing every year. A sad attempt at a 'fountain'-water spurting from a dozen jets on one side of the square is popular with thirsty dogs but few humans.

William St-even the hookers have fled

Former Prime Minister Paul Keating's call for William Street leading up to Kings Cross to be transformed into a mini Champs Elysee has fallen on deaf ears. The glitzy boutique Royalty Prussia is the only retailer to have taken up the challenge. Luxury auto showrooms like Ferrari have fled to the inner west. Even the once colourful transvestite hookers who populated the street around mid-night have fled.

Many residents and business groups are asking just what has been gained by having Moore as both local MP and Lord Mayor. As an independent she gains no support from either the Liberal or Labor Party who would both like to see her gone and who prefer to concentrate their resources on the outer suburbs where their support is strong.

All this is infuriating around 30 local inner city businessmen who feel Moore has betrayed them over her much talked about plans to regenerate Oxford Street and it's many small alleyways into smart cafes, art precincts and so on. It's all been a miserable failure according to them.

Last week the multi-millionaire nightclub owner Justin Hemmes found himself with a pistol held to his head as two balaclavered thugs robbed his newly purchased Excelsior Hotel in Surry Hills. The bandits were so emboldened that they ignored the fact that the pub was packed at the time and their get-away car parked next to a police car outside. They fled with the loot while the coppers looked on.

Justin Hemmes

A distressed Hemmes and his father John Hemmes can be seen in this video arguing with police about the incident. Hemmes who has invested something like $200M in various nightclubs and pubs including the Ivy complex in the city was furious when Moore and police wanted to impose strict drinking hours and curtail his operations earlier last year.
They backed down on that one and Hemmes says the problem is rather one of few police on patrol in a city that now operates 24 hours of the day. Rather than trying to dictate to tens of thousands of young people just what hours they should start and end their partying, authorities and Moore should be curtailing the handful of troublemakers rather than make everyone suffer because of a few. Hemmes says he feels safer walking the streets of New York rather than Sydney.

Five years ago Clover Moore was the unchallenged Queen of Sydney but her crown is tarnished, some say beyond repair. Is it any wonder many are fuming over a report in City Hub newspaper earlier this year where Moore was spotted drink in hand on the footpath at Harbour City Bears art show for the Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras. Other galleries, bars and cafes who put a foot wrong end up with fines for thousand of dollars for similar infractions.

Seen in The City :

outside St Mary's Cathedral

at Star City

British Tabloid Discovers Our John !



John Ibrahim & pals



The web newspaper that garners more hits than any other on the planet-over 30 million a month has run a long piece on Kings Cross identity John Ibrahim who regularly graces what passes for 'social' pages in the colonies.



The Mail Online has delved into Ibrahim's connections to Australia's Got Talent judge and  former member of Irish boy band Westlife, Brian McFadden who is engaged to pop princess Delta Goodrem.

It's all very reminiscent of the Kray Twins and their show-biz connections in London in the 1960s.

 Regular Shuttle readers will be well acquainted with the ever so charming head of the large Ibrahim family who we encounter at all manner of smart parties and product launches. He is an honoured guest at the private pool bar at John Hemmes Ivy nightclub complex and Ibrahim  himself owns shares in around 20 nightclubs in Kings Cross and the Golden Mile, gay Oxford Street. Much in the same way the late Abe Saffron seemed to own a piece of the action in every nite spot in town.



Brian McFadden & Delta Goodrem

 To consolidate business affairs, John also provides an army of security personnel to guard the premises, bouncers and so on although  his girlfriend actually has the much coveted security license necessary to operate.

John's business affairs seem to be rather complicated but they have brought him great riches including a huge mansion in Dover Heights that overlooks the Pacific Ocean and Bondi Beach. In his early 40s his contact list is extensive and he regularly travels to  Dubai and Las Vegas often meeting with party girl Paris Hilton.

 It's recently been disclosed that he made an $150K payment to the NSW Crime Commission although Ibrahim claims it was a "tax debt". Apparently the original sum was $800K and John's lawyers managed to 'negotiate' it down to the smaller amount. The Crime Commission is accomodating like that.

The payment happened in 2005 when Ibrahim was facing court for threatening a witness and perverting the course of justice although all charges were eventually dismissed. 



Fadi Ibrahim

Not that John hasn't had his problems. Younger brother Fadi Ibrahim and his girlfriend were almost assassinated in 2009 by a hail of bullets as they sat in their Lamborghini outside Fadi's mansion. Poor Fadi had part of his stomach removed in hospital and it wasn't his gorgeous fiancee's first appointment with drama either.

Her former fiance Faouzi Abou-Jibal was gunned down in a park in 2009 and thus avoided a pending trial for the stabbing of the Fat Pizza TV series actor George Nassour and his brother, Robin.

Now Fadi's girlfriend Shayda Bastani, has been charged with conspiracy to murder a man alleged to have been the hooded man who shot at the pair in their Lamborghini.

Matters just get more complicated from hereon. John & Fadi's sister has been charged with "recklessly dealing with proceeds of crime" after police found she had, as one does, over $3 million in $50 & $100 notes concealed in the ceiling of her suburban house.. Perhaps a former tenant left it behind.

Older brother Sam Ibrahim is the president of the Nomads Motorcycle Club which the coppers reckon is an organised criminal gang. Sam has been charged with 2 kneecappings and running a cocaine distribution service. Even John's young son Daniel from a previous liaison was charged with affray after an incident on the Gold Coast outside a nightclub.

John featured in the top hit TV series Underbelly in 2009 when it concentrated on crime and police corruption in Kings Cross. He was portrayed as a bodyguard for crime baron George Freeman although people say he was really just a driver for Freeman who ran illegal casinos all over town.

 Freeman's 33 Club in Oxford Street was a favourite haunt of then NSW Premier Robin Askin, who like police chief Louis Renault (Claude Rains) in Rick's Bar in Casablanca said he was "shocked, absolutely shocked" when the Opposition claimed in Parliament that Sydney was awash with illegal gambling dens. Like Renault, Askin regularly pocketed his winnings at the 33 Club craps table.

The Shuttle must confess it  has form here. As shown in Underbelly, John & Fadi first got their break when they managed to take a controlling share of the Tunnel Nightclub. At a party there for the launch of a new perfume it was  the Shuttle that first propelled the 2 brothers on the road to society page stardom when we snapped the two enterprising youngsters with some sexy girls and published the pic in a Sunday newspaper. They've never looked back really !