Kings Cross measures target the public not the troublemakers: AHA NSW

Nicolaou said hoteliers had originally suggested introducing scanners in Kings Cross to the government – and still backed them for use on Friday and Saturday nights.

However, forcing locals and visitors to 'The Cross' to be scanned when having dinner on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights – or breakfast on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday – was ridiculous.

"There are a lot more things we could be doing to improve safety in the Cross than scanning the ID of a local couple who wants to grab a burger on the way home from work on a Monday night," Nicolaou said.

"How about more CCTV? More transport or more police on our streets during the actual times when statistics show violence actually occurs? Or is that too hard?

"The government needs to remember Kings Cross and Potts Point are vibrant communities made up of citizens – not a police state.

"We need to be looking at targeted measures on a Friday and Saturday night when the problems occur – not cosmetic measures that do nothing but cost money and inconvenience the public.

"As a result of the government's move: if you want to go out and have a hamburger at 7pm on a Monday you will be scanned; if you want to enter a venue and go to the toilet at 7pm on a Tuesday you will be scanned; if you want to have a drink with a mate on Wednesday at 7pm you will be scanned.

"How would any of this have stopped the attack on Thomas Kelly, which took place on a public street at 10pm on a Saturday night?"

Nicolaou said members back evidence-based solutions – ban thugs from the entire area.

"We are very concerned that a patron refused entry to, or removed from a 'high risk' licensed premises will be able to just walk across the road into a smaller nightclub or brothel and will not leave the area," he said.

"Offenders need to be banned from the Precinct, and every venue in it, at peak times but instead the focus is on people having dinner on a Monday or Tuesday."

Assault rates in the Cross fell 37 per cent in the five years before Thomas Kelly's death. Across the state assault rates in and around licensed venues are at their lowest levels in 15 years.