So Surfers Paradise has been getting a flogging lately. Both figuratively and literally.

The Gold Coast Bulletin has started a campaign to save it from itself and even the A1 cars won't be seen dead there. (Side note - A quick congratulations to the QLD Government for their researching prowess this year)

But in all honesty, has it really ever been any different?

The reporter from the GC Bulletin went in to Surfers undercover like for the night and wrote of sighting a big orange “spew” at the entrance to McDonalds and the accompanying pictures showed young girls wandering around, heels in hand or being piggy backed. Really? That’s the best you got? More goes on behind Richard Wilkins head at the live New Years Eve broadcast.

Then they interviewed a couple who are staying in Surfers with their young children saying they cannot go out past 9pm. Um, hello, shouldn’t the kidlets be safely tucked up in bed by then anyway?

I remember as a kid, only going into Surfers Paradise to meet our Victorian relatives when they came up for a holiday. It was a wonderland for me. Grundy’s and the massive waterslide. OK not massive but I was 8 and everything looked big. Walking past Charlies and indulging in Porky’s Spare Ribs the small pleasures. I vividly remember waiting at the bus stop across from Bombay Rock watching all the “young hooligans” as my mother referred to them, skipping in front of cars on their way in to watch a band. Probably a band like Kids in the Kitchen or INXS.

That was the Mid 80’s. By the Mid 90’s that was me. Drunk, stupid and having an awesome time occasionally spewing in a garden beside Hungry Jacks. It was what was done. It’s what is still done. Drug of choice well may have changed so too the way the boys carefully coiffe their hair within an inch of its life but the main aim of getting loose, dancing and hooking up with a random backpacker? Not so much.

Sure, something needs to be done with Surfers Paradise. Clean up the cigarette butts for a start. Stop the smoking in the mall. Strolling thru Cavill Avenue feels like you've sucked down a pack of Winnie blues, and that's just during the daytime. Finish building the Hilton. Bring in zero tolerance for jerkoffs with heads bigger than their overinflated, steroid enhanced chests. All a start. But take away the nightclubs? Good luck with that.

So what will my kids be doing come their 18th birthday. If they are anything like me, they will be there well before they turn that age. The amount of times we told Mum we were going out to “dinner” and meanwhile we were standing around shitfaced sucking down cocktails at Bensons was ridiculous. And no doubt all the clubs will have changed names 10 times over by the time she is venturing into the seedy Orchid Avenue strip, but the main aim will still be the same. Am I OK with that? I’d like to think so. Get back to me in 2017.