Too much to beer
“ZEALOUS” officials have been told to back off fining a Mount Tamborine business owner who put up alternate road signage after a crucial bridge collapsed.
Fox & Hounds pub owner Justin Hemer took matters into his own hands after John Muntz Bridge, the main arterial link to Mt Tamborine, washed away in Cyclone Debbie flooding.
After frustration with what he felt was inadequate official state signage redirecting visitors, he banged up his own.
“I’ve had to put up signs myself and then I got a visit from council threatening to fine me $600 for every sign I put up,” Mr Hemer said.
“What do you want to me to do here? There is a major causeway missing, it’s our gateway and our lifeline.”
Mr Hemer, who estimated drive-by trade to his English pub had dropped 70 per cent due to the bridge being impassable, complained about the fine threat to area councillor William Owen-Jones.
Cr Owen-Jones said he could understand Mr Hemer's position and contacted the council’s director of community services.
“She resolved the issue the next day. Everybody understands the frustration and it was perhaps one of our officers maybe being a little too zealous,” Cr Owen-Jones said.
“The city is taking no action in regard to his signage.”
Mr Hemer said he was frustrated about “inadequate” official alternative signage put up by the state’s Department of Transport and Main Roads.
In a letter to Mr Hemer this month, the department’s south coast district acting director Andrew Wheeler said the department was working to ensure more “comprehensive detour signage” along alternate routes to Tamborine-Oxenford Road. “At the request of the community, these signs have been reviewed several times and additional signage put in place on various local and statecontrolled roads.”
Google Maps had also been contacted to ensure they had the latest infor- mation on the repair works and routes, he said.
Main Roads Minister Mark Bailey said the bridge was scheduled to be reopened with one lane by late July.
Mr Hemer said it couldn’t come soon enough: “A lot of people get to the bridge and go ‘holy cow, how do we get there now?’.”