Beach bar battle continues
A STOUSH over a popular beachfront bar has left a Torquay business owner feeling harassed and claiming to be more than $100,000 out of pocket.
Bomboras’ pop-up bar was dragged through a long and costly Victorian and Civil Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) dispute by a nearby neighbour before opening for a trial run in late 2016.
Following the bar’s eventual opening — which was praised by locals, organisations and punters — owner Tom McGrath said a handful of objectors had continued attempts to block the bar’s reopening.
Police complaints, WorkSafe complaints and a pair of objections to the state’s Liquor Licence authority were all sub- mitted in the days after the bar recently secured a four-year tenure of the Fisherman’s Beach public viewing deck.
With the bar now open to make the most of peak visitor season, Mr McGrath said the endless series of complaints had left the business owners feeling harassed by one or two people.
“We feel 100 per cent harassed,” Mr McGrath said. “We do feel a little bit like we’re kowtowing to a very small minority, and everything they can come up with.”
“They have had so many avenues and they’ve taken every one of them, and they will continue to do it and continue to complain.
“People in the general community would not be able to fathom how much we get harassed by these guys, and how many hoops we have to jump through. They would just be absolutely shocked if they saw what we have to go through just to have this family-friendly bar.”
Mr McGrath said the bar’s VCAT battle with one objector cost the business about $80,000 — a price tag which had since been pushed to “well over $100,000”.
He said he was now concerned with the objection system for small businesses in Victoria.
“Once we get through January, I think some serious questions need to be asked of how complaints of objectors are completed, and how much airtime we give objectors,” Mr McGrath said.
“There should be a fair system that is fair across the board.
“The interesting thing is I own three licenced venues in town, and this is the only one I have to go through all this for. I’ve held a liquor licence in Torquay for 12 years and not one incident.”
VCAT member Philip Mar- tin last year said concerns about inappropriate alcoholfuelled behaviour at the bar were “legitimate per se”, but were considered to be “exaggerated and carrying only limited weight”.
A Great Ocean Road Coast Committee statement described the bar’s trial as a community-supported success that conformed with all the various planning and licensing conditions.
In October, a 1300-signature petition was lodged at a Surf Coast Shire meeting in support of Bomboras’ bid to permanently open the bar. The council received 16 submissions about the proposal, including 14 against it.
The opponents were concerned about the use of public land, noise, light, a lack of car parking and impact on the public viewing platform.