With the closure of BHP Steelworks in 1999 after more than 80 years of operation, the 21st Century dawned as a new era for Australia’s second oldest city. The millennium marked Newcastle’s new life as a post-industrial city and with this a growing night-time leisure economy. Newcastle’s rising night-time leisure economy has also seen public spaces in Newcastle’s city centre emerge as crime hotspots in which alcohol-related public disorder, assault and malicious damage have been on the rise. This paper reflects on using critical ethnography as a method, as well as the findings of a critical ethnography of the regulation of alcohol-related crime and the effects on night-time leisure economy in inner Newcastle.