Schoolies face Gold Coast balcony ban

Schoolies could be banned from hotel and high-rise apartment balconies on the Gold Coast after safety concerns over drunken and loutish behaviour.

Queensland’s Office of Fair Trading is investigating whether youths celebrating the end of their high school exams can be locked out of high-rise balconies after reports of throwing projectiles, jumping between units and skylarking.

A group of bodies corporate has made the push for the lockout due to concerns that schoolies who throw objects from balconies pose a health and safety risk to other tenants and the public in general.

Four years ago a teenager fell 11 storeys while climbing over balconies from unit to unit.

"They have a little ledge linking balconies to the one unit, so they used to do the balcony walk and this particular schoolie fell 11 storeys and it was fatal," police superintendent Jim Keogh told the Courier Mail.

"It was a terribly tragic situation."

Permission for lockouts would have to be granted on a case by case basis, Queensland state authorities.