July 20, 2026 — 5:28pmOrganisers of a LGBTQ Sydney nightclub housed in a 158-year-old deconsecrated church say they have been evicted from the venue based on an obscure law of “offensive trade” used to regulate foul smells and industrial waste, and have not ruled out a legal action.The lease for Divine Playhouse on Kent Street in Sydney’s CBD has been officially terminated by way of an obscure 1842 NSW law which its lawyers say has never been extended to cover “moral” offensiveness. This was said to have caused “grievance and disturbance to owners of adjoining properties and to the general public”.Musicians and artists inside the now-defunct Divine Playhouse before it opened.Janie BarrettIt potentially sets the scene for a legal dispute over the validity of the commercial tenancy eviction, and action through the Anti-Discrimination act.Divine Playhouse (changed from Unholy Playhouse) received a $100,000 grant from Create NSW to stage a four-month creative revival and multidisciplinary arts festival, sparking a backlash from Christian groups who claimed certain events were intended to mock or demean their faith.The events group now has until 5pm on Wednesday to remove industrial bar fridges, flooring, artworks, customised signage and other works they carried out at the empty heritage site at 420 Kent Street.Kat Dopper, founder of Divine Playhouse and HG Events, confirmed it is searching for a new home and has urged any developers, landowners and private space holders with something unique to come forward.Opening Night at Divine Playhouse.Anna Hay“If a landlord’s personal beliefs can shut down an arts venue, no stage in this country is safe,” Dopper said in a statement. “Who decides what art is acceptable? Right now, the answer is whoever owns the building.”Michael Bradley, managing partner of Marque Lawyers, who is representing the evicted tenants, said the grounds for eviction was unprecedented.“A standard clause in the commercial lease states that a party can’t engage in offensive trade,” he said. “The Conveyancing Act applies a meaning to that term, giving it more substance. The historical roots of this term trace back to the Public Health Act of England, which discussed offensive trade in the context of abattoirs and other trades posing public health risks. It has evolved in modern law, but as far as we can see, no one has claimed it extends into this realm of the morally offensive.”Bradley said lawyers for the landlord – Sydney-based property investment trust KCSYD Pty Ltd – terminated HG’s lease on July 15, alleging the tenant couldn’t engage in “offensive trade”. He said the landlord’s lawyers stated that HG’s activities had caused “grievance and disturbance to owners of adjoining properties and to the general public”.“They wrote ‘your client does not appear to understand that the trade which is carried on, and proposed to continue to carry on, insults and mocks the sincerely held religious beliefs of millions of Christian Australians’,” Bradley said.Professor Cathy Sherry, Macquarie University’s Australian expert on land law, said the case posed a difficult conundrum for liberal democracies.“It is important that we be tolerant of points of view, even those we disagree with intensely. We don’t really want to go down that path; it’s not a pretty path to go down. When you are granted a lease, you are given exclusive possession and are generally free to do things as long as they don’t damage the property, are illegal or compromise landlord insurance, but it is an unusual thing for landlords to police a point of view. Nobody should be policing public expression, whether you are landlord, neighbour or a council.”Dopper said she was fighting for Divine Playhouse, and “every artist, every show, every venue, every community, every collective, every expression of unfamiliar or uncomfortable ideas that could be next”.“We’re not walking away.“To anyone with a unique space: you wouldn’t just be offering us a home. You’d be providing the lifeblood for the future of this city’s independent arts and cultural communities.”Supporters of Divine Playhouse are planning to hold a ‘sing-in’ protest at Hyde Park on Saturday, and have so far raised $36,000 in crowdfunding towards its campaign.From our partners