THIS SPORTING (AND MUNCHING) LIFE

 Note: new material added 17042017

Shire of York thumbs its nose at Competitive Neutrality, uses ratepayers’ money to subsidise costly seafood meals for local gourmands and visitors to the town

York hostelries set to lose out again this Easter in the battle for the tourist dollar

Easter used to be a prosperous time for businesses in York.

 Sunny weather, plenty of visitors seeking a pleasant weekend away from the city, interesting things to do and see, money changing hands in local restaurants, cafés, hotels and shops, an atmosphere of cheerful optimism pervading the CBD, happy faces everywhere—what more could a rural community ask?

Well, that’s what it used to be like.   The tourists still come, perhaps in smaller numbers, but now there are many fewer businesses in town to benefit from their largesse.

One hotel, the magnificent Imperial, has stood empty for several years, and is rumoured to be awaiting resurrection as an office block (surely somebody is having us on). 

The others, the Castle and the York, don’t seem to be doing anything like as well as in happier times.  Both the York and Settlers are struggling hard to regain their former glory after years of bearing ‘Closed’ signs on their respective front doors. 

As for restaurants and cafés, the one that used to be Bugatti’s is closed, Mad Mo along the Terrace is fighting to survive, Yorkie’s carriage has not survived the vicissitudes of management changes—the last especially catastrophic—and the small establishment across the street from the Castle has also faded away. 

As for Saint’s Diner…

Thank goodness for Jules and the Flourmill Café, both of which still manage to attract locals and tourists alike and against all odds seem still to be doing well, though probably nothing like as well as they deserve.

In a recent issue of the Weekend West, the former proprietor of the Imperial, now settled in Albany and doing very nicely there, thank you, alluded to the period when his hotel in York prospered.  That, he told a reporter, was ‘before they killed the town’.

I think we all know who the unspecified ‘they’ might be.  In fact, most of them still walk cockily among us, middle fingers pointing resolutely heavenwards, faces permanently wreathed in a sly and jolly grin because they are confident that whatever their fellow ratepayers may demand, the Shire of York will go on propping up their favourite watering hole, courtesy of ratepayers, with a generous wad of cash.

‘They’ are folk who have been happy to sacrifice the welfare of local businesses and a majority of residents to the interests of the sporting clubs and the middle-aged and elderly club hangers-on who regularly avail themselves of subsidised grub and grog in the Shire’s licensed tavern, now doing brisk business as the Forrest Bar and Café.

At the risk of providing that enterprise with free advertising, I reproduce below its splendid bill of fare for the coming Easter weekend. It was emailed to me yesterday by a kind friend of this blog.

Forrest Bar and Café

Seafood menu selection

Bar opens 11am & meals service commences 5.30pm

Oysters Natural with two dressings $14 (6 oysters)

Asian-style squid and noodle salad $15

Creamy smoked salmon fettucine $18

Thai seafood laksa $18

Sizzling chilli garlic prawns and bread $20

Veal Parmigiana with chips OR spaghetti $20

Snapper fillet & chips – either grilled or battered $20

Chilli mussels, to your liking, served with bread $20

Seafood Mornay pie served with chips $25

Reef and beef: Scotch fillet with prawns, garlic sauce &

served with either chips/salad or potato/veges $33

Extras: Chips or Side salad $4, Sweet potato wedges $5.50

Kids’ $7 meals

Fish bites and chips
Small serve of lasagne and chips Nuggets and chips
Small spaghetti Bolognaise

Desserts $7.50

Rich chocolate mousse
Sticky date pudding and butterscotch sauce Easter rocky road cheesecake

Scrumptious offerings indeed, at extremely competitive prices—about 20-30% less, I’d say, than a customer could expect to stump up for equivalent fare in a privately owned bistro or restaurant, and well worth a trip out of town away from the CBD.   

Such is the power of a Shire of York subsidy.

It’s not far-fetched to suggest that when tourist families dine at the Forrest Bar and Restaurant, the open-handed ratepayers of York treat them to dessert and possibly the kids’ meals as well.

I suppose that for York residents who dine there, the Forrest Bar and Café provides a convenient opportunity to scratch back a few dollars of the outlandish rates sucked out of their pockets by a rapacious local government year after year.

But at what cost to the welfare of the town? How many more businesses are destined for the gurgler if the Forrest Bar and Restaurant continues to draw people away from the centre of town?

How many empty shops must we have before York's hospitality industry, already diminished, finally sickens and dies?

NB: You can find the above menu on the Shire of York website at
http://recreation.york.wa.gov.au/Profiles/reccentre/Assets/ClientData/What_s_on_16_4_17.pdf

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Submissions are now available on the Shire of York website

In a comment appended to my previous posted article, I mentioned that I had responded with couple of questions to a letter from Ms Suzie Haslehurst, Executive Manager Corporate and Community Services.

In her reply, Suzie informed me that the submissions formed part of the agenda for the April meeting of Council.  You will find them at

http://www.york.wa.gov.au/Profiles/york/assets/moduledata/councilmeetings/4e55150e-29c8-43f5-8308-ae4932591d59/2.0/Appendices%20-%20SY039-0417%20-%20YRCC%20Submissions.pdf

 The Shire received a total of 12 submissions, comprising two from sporting clubs (Lawn Tennis and Bowling, signed respectively by club presidents Gary Lawrence and Pat Hooper), two from local businesses (York Olive Oil Company and York Palace Hotel), and the remainder from ‘the community’.

One of the community submissions was the work of Mrs Sheryl Russo, who as the spouse of the manager of the Forrest Bar and Café mysteriously omitted to declare an interest—unlike Nola and Richard Bliss, of the York Palace Hotel, who as we would all no doubt expect of them scrupulously observed the proprieties.

Other community submissions came from Deanne Slater, Bill Roy, Tanya Richardson, Jan Underwood, Roma Paton, Kirrie and Jamie Edis, and your humble and obedient servant, me.

The Shire has prefaced the submissions collectively with a useful synopsis of each one.  This reveals that five of them advert positively to the ‘User Pays’ principle while a sixth states that users should pay ‘standard industry fees’, which is at least a nod in the same direction.

I'll have more to say about the submissions when I’ve given them full and earnest consideration.   Meanwhile, here is the text of the exchange so far of emails between Suzie Haslehurst and me.

From: James Plumridge [mailto:bljp@westnet.com.au]
Sent: Sunday, 9 April 2017 2:05 PM
To: Records <records@york.wa.gov.au>
Subject: I159723 - CCP.7 - YRCC Submission

Attention Suzie Haslehurst, EMCCS

Dear Suzie,

I refer to your letter of 4 April 2017.

Please let me know (a) if the 'proposed options' referred to in your letter include only the options canvassed in your discussion paper and not others that may have been proposed in submissions from the public, and (b) if those submissions will be published (presumably on the Shire's website) before the 'workshopping' process is due to begin.

Yours sincerely

James Plumridge

On 13/04/2017 3:58 PM, Suzie Haslehurst wrote:

Dear James

Thank you for your email on 10 April.  In answer to your queries, the agenda for the April Council meeting is now on the Shire’s website and you’ll note the public submissions received have been included both for Council’s and the public’s information.  As outlined in the agenda report, we’re now collecting supporting information from other Shires following site visits and this information, along with the submissions received will inform the selection of options to be workshopped by Council and then with stakeholders.

Regards

Suzie Haslehurst

Executive Manager

Corporate & Community Services

Shire of York 

On 13/04/2017 5:24 PM, I replied:

Dear Suzie

Thank you for your response.

Who are the 'stakeholders' you refer to?  Does the term include ratepayers in general, or is it restricted to representatives of sporting clubs and perhaps habitual users of the tavern?

I would suppose that every one of York's ratepayers, without exception, has a considerable 'stake' in the future of the YRCC.

Regards

James Plumridge