The Tasty Raid
Not long after midnight on 7 August 1994, Victoria Police entered the Commerce Club on Flinders Street in Melbourne. The club was hosting the Tasty event. The Tasty nightclub wasn’t very well known to the general public, but it was about to be.
Tasty was a popular venue for queer folks, and like any nightclub anywhere drug taking was common- because it was a nightclub. Because of homophobia, transphobia, bigotry and racism, people wanting to go into Tasty would enter via the side entrance on Flinders Lane, in part for their own security.
On Sunday 7 August 1994, Victoria Police entered and blocked anyone from leaving for some seven hours. Victoria Police made everyone strip naked and people were searched in full view of other revellers. What drove Victoria Police to do this (apart from homophobia, transphobia, and bigotry of course) was not clear. Even though there were only two drug related arrests, all charges were dropped.
"How can you do this?" police were asked as yet another naked clubber was asked to bend over to be checked for illicit drugs.
"It's worse for us than it is for you," came the reply.
Victoria Police did know that the patrons of Tasty were mostly queer. Again, Victoria Police and homophobia.
Unbeknown to Victoria Police, a patron photographed the raid, doing so in the dark and this photograph was smuggled out of Tasty and it appeared on the front page of The Age newspaper under the headline “Hands Against The Wall”.
This photograph created a great deal of political controversy as well as embarrassing a police force that had no shame to begin with.
Victoria Police were ultimately sued, they had to pay over $10,000,000 in damages to patrons. It is speculated that this figure could have been a lot higher but not all of the patrons wanted to come forward and effectively out themselves via a public court process. Many were also rightly too traumatised to participate.
On the 20th anniversary of the Tasty Nightclub Raid, Acting Chief Commissioner Lucinda Nolan apologised to the LGBTI community at the Victoria Police Museum.
"The events that took place that night caused distress to people and had a significant impact on the relationship between Victoria Police and the wider LGBTI [lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender and intersex] community," - Acting Commissioner Nolan.
Despite this, violence towards queer people, First Nations people, and people of colour, perpetrated by Victoria Police continues to this day.
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