Police targeted gay venues yet again last night with police dogs sweeping through Oxford Street at about 5am. While the police action has been referred to as a routine walk through, it is the third weekend in a row that policehave taken sniffer dogs to gay spaces – the first being Azure, the second Mardi Gras party. Both very high profile acts, both very clear statements.

Manacle, Arq, Kinselas and Stonewall were all hit at around 5am this morning, one partygoer at Arq saying, “they hung around for quite a while, did about six sweeps of the club.”

One can’t help but wonder how much of this is routine, and how much of it is motivated by something else. Is this really effective policing? Not really, especially when we note that homophobic violence is only increasing on Oxford Street. And according to statistics from the NSW Council For Civil Liberties 73% of people identified by sniffer dogs are not even carrying drugs, most drugs detected are small amounts of cannabis and the dogs are failing to detect drug dealers.

What do you think? Much ado about nothing? Overkill? Have your say in the forums.

Photo: www.theage.com.au