August 30, 2026 — 2:50pm

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Tommy Richardson was licensee of Balmain’s West End Hotel – previously owned by notorious crime figure Abe Saffron – when it was a hardcore drinking venue for members of the Painters and Dockers’ Union in the early 1980s.

“That was their pub,” he says. “And half the gangsters in Sydney.”

It was towards the end of an era when the Balmain-Rozelle peninsula had one of the highest concentrations of pubs in Sydney – arguably only behind The Rocks – and drinkers included ship builders, boilermakers and factory workers…

Read the full article at SMH.COM.AU