Panic on the dance floor: Why are police raiding Oxford Street clubs?

June 19, 2026 — 4:30pm

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The minute I saw the photo, I knew it would go viral. It featured two of a number of uniformed police, plus sniffer dogs, as they stormed Sydney’s flagship queer club, Universal, last Saturday night. They picked people from the dance floor to be marched to the toilets to be interrogated, stripped and searched. Revellers watched in fear, confusion and distress.

I posted the photo – a still from a video taken by a friend at the club – and asked if others had such stories of recent police nightclub raids. Within two hours, I had six screens worth of direct messages, each detailing police dance-floor invasions or harassment.

I’ve spent this week chatting to clubgoers, DJs, promoters, nightclub staff and venue owners. All spoke off the record for fear of reprisal. What I discovered shocked me – and convinced me that NSW Police must urgently change the way it allocates its resources.

It was already supposed to have changed. The force’s new “step back” policy marked a departure from the grim wall of police and dogs greeting people at the entrance of every NSW festival. Many hoped this would flow on to fewer random raids on nightclubs.

Not so. From 2022 until last year, there had been one police dog raid per year on Universal. In the past 12 months, there’ve been nine.

Last Saturday’s events reveal the extent of the problem. One attendee told me: “I’m not........

© The Sydney Morning Herald