Sydney Hairdresser Pleads Guilty To Slapping Stonewall Hotel Security Guard

A 32-year-old hairdresser, employed at a top Sydney hair salon Paloma in Paddington, who slapped a security guard at Stonewall Hotel on Oxford Street, was this week sentenced for his “bizarre behaviour”.

Tony Lance McKenzie,  pleaded guilty to assault before a Downing Centre Local Court. The court sentenced McKenzie to a two-year conditional release order without conviction for what was as an unprovoked attack.

According to The Daily Telegraph, police said that on the night of June 21 this year, shortly before 11pm, McKenzie had lined up to enter Stonewall Hotel. The security outside the venue reportedly noticed that McKenzie was swaying and slurring his words and denied him entry.

The Daily Telegraph reported that being refused entry to the venue set McKenzie off. He verbally abused the security, saying to them that they were a “fucking cunt”. Things escalated, with McKenzie slapping a security guard across their forehead with an open hand.

Police were then called to the venue, not by the security or venue staff, but by McKenzie himself. When the police arrived, McKenzie claimed that no violence had taken place, denied he had slapped the security guard, and that the sole issue was just “that he had been refused entry.”

Bizarre Behaviour

After being taken into police custody, McKenzie was transported to Surry Hills Police Station, where he was placed in an “intoxicated time out” and woke up sometime later.

In handing down his sentence, Magistrate Michael Antrum described McKenzie’s behaviour as “bizarre”.

“These courts every day are convicting people for stupid, mindless violence outside licensed venues,” he said.

The court cited McKenzie’s otherwise clean criminal record as the reason why he was not handed down a more severe penalty.  Antrum added, “If there has been anything in your history we would simply be talking about how long as a minimum the community corrections order is going to be.”