What’s more, The Carlton in Sloane St is primed for a new pub culture, without poker machines.

Owner John Kelly has put the hotel on the market with Peter Mylonas Property Solutions. However the premises has been for sale intermittently over the past two years.

The property includes the pub licence, bar, fittings, six motel rooms, a manager’s residence and 200 square metres of land. A 10-year lease with an option to renew for the same period is also being explored.

Mr Kelly said his recent ill health had prompted the decision. But he stressed the pub was not closing, contrary to speculation. More recently he has sold the hotel’s seven poker machines and traded its permits to another local premises.

“I’ve sold them mainly due to the law changes that took effect on January 31 governing the transfer of poker machines permits and pressure from a certain senator (Xenophon) to get rid of them from hotels,” Mr Kelly said.

The legislation changes meant that venues would relinquish their unused poker machine entitlements by January 31 this year, rather than have the ability to trade them. But these alterations were first mooted in January 2009 and the State Government gave the industry two years to comply.

Nevertheless, Mr Kelly said it was a sign of things to come and in any case, more places were getting rid of pokies.

“They are seen as antisocial and to me it was the writing on the wall that in future pokies will be phased out altogether,” he said.

Mr Kelly bought the Carlton five and a half years ago. Mr Mylonas’s firm also put it up for auction in March 2007 but it remained under Mr Kelly’s ownership.

Despite the property going on the market, he has not ruled out redeveloping the site at some point. Nearby, local developers are refurbishing the Huntly Arcade.

The Carlton site has had a long pub history, starting with the Terminus Hotel, a structure which was replaced in 1898.

The McKavanagh family held the licence for many years throughout the 1970s and 1980s and in 1992 rugby league great Gavin Miller bought the premises.