Trails and Tribulations of being a live music venue owner..... Chapter 5

PLEASE READ IN ORDER to make the most sense - grab a beer, wine, splif?

Definitely needed a break there too, is really coming up, making me a little eegghh dealing with it all at once. But! be gone! As I transfer my twisted knots, headaches, sadness, pain, why me's, body aches, sleepless nights into this story here, coming out for the last time, no more air or energy will this be given...

Again, I acknowledge my absolute now unwavering reasons why I keep fighting.... the music; is in us all and the people; without each other we have nothing ...

Chapter 5

The relentless calls by Volde to authorities were clearly becoming harassment and added to my exhaustion of working a full time job come July 2022 as well as running Elixir. I'm so forever grateful to all my closest fam bam for all their support, my possie, Tam, Roch, Jac, Ash and especially Persio.... you've been by myside through it all, the mountains of tears and the pressure. Persio, continuing supporting me by still coming to the venue even after .......

One Sept evening, Volde and the fam were up for school hols. They were on their walk back to their apartment when Volde spots Persio, lines him up and forcefully shoulder barges past him!! Even though there was plenty of room presented for him to pass. So now the interactions had reached physical assault... and in front of his daughter. His wife followed a little after with persio asking if she just saw what he did... her reply was "you probably deserved it", This in front of their son. I can't talk anymore about that topic, as it's still being processed.

Although the tension and the on edge feeling Persio gets still every time he visits, he still comes as much as he can to support me and all the musos! He still loves it so much, but it's definitely tainted especially when we don't know when they've arrived and left....

Sept also had us receive an email and formal letter from council advising us that we are using our premises unlawfully. We had to go in for a meeting to find out what the heck was going on now!

It seems that one of our landlords found out Volde was potentially using his unit "unlawfully", as did the previous owner, for a residential set up. Our block is supposed to be commercial only. So apparently he jumped on and applied for his Material Change of Use. Nothing went through our body corps committee for his change, which we found quite strange, as i found out his had gone through by looking on the council website..... even though his change was also only Code assessable, like our one, as the council zoning we are in is Short Term Accommodation, he still had not had to go through body corps.

The notice from council compliance bought up that we had/ were using our space for indeed all the things we were. Me naively thinking as long as our other activities don't over take our main food and beverage income then that is still our principle activity, as well as it being allowed to be used as a private function space, I wasn't aware that it must ONLY be for food and bev.

More tears, more pressure, dad still in debilitating pain, my own debilitating heart break of how I've put everyone else and Elixir first before my own dad with money and him not being able to afford the operation and properly look after himself, me not having the time and energy to look after him either.... was a really fucking heavy time....

But, not only had Volde been harassing us for 6 months, also calling council food department when one of our friends was volunteering helping us build our food by doing some kick ass BBQ stuff out the front {apparently not allowed as we dont have a proper installed hand wash station out the front}, and assaulted my partner, he was now combing through our fb and insta accounts to dob us into council. Wow. This angry little man. It was made clear to them that live music is not food and beverage and how we advertise is also in breech and has us using the venue unlawfully even.with.live.music!!! It's been a live music venue for 12 years!!

{This is not the end of this part.... this is in fact the part that I need advice and feedback on from you beautiful people who I'm so lucky to have as friends.}

Sept was also dads fundrasier!! Talk about the good with the bad... I still haven't done my thank yous for that, I do promise it's still coming. I'm hoping you understand why it's taken so long after reading all this. I need and want to be in the most appreciative and grateful space when I'm writing my thank yous

Now the last bit to top Sept off..... was also a visit from the EPA. I got a call one day, listened back to the message and thought, dear god, what now? I spoke to a lovely woman who said she was calling for more noise complaints and seeing as we weren't licenced his complaints got directed to council. I broke down in tears again, on my lunch time break, up at showgrounds, devasted at the lengths this guy is going to! She arranged to meet that arvo as I finished at 3pm after stating at 7am

In this meeting she said she didn't have any good news for us. She could see we were working with council on the MCU compliance matter, as after the meeting with them we had forwarded an email advising what we do in our space, have done and would like to do in the future. She could see how effected we were by all this. Unfortunately though.... even though we have a report and authorised legal db limit of 100db after going through a whole thang with that too when we first opened... a few thousand buckaroos later also... it seems this report does not sit on the premises, it's a condition on our liquor licence. And we were no longer licenced. We were informed our legal db requirement due to us being a restaurant without the liquor licence and condition was..... drum roll please........ 75db. Aaaaaand after 1030pm?..... 5db!!!! My sisters kids fart louder than that!

True fact! All restaurants, cafes, every venue, unless hold a liquor licence and has a permanent variation of db condition, they're all meant to be at 75db. Being the super lovely lady she is, her job was to make us compliant and she suggested the quickest way to do this, was to get re-licenced. Still so upset, I stated we wouldn't be able to do the whole food:alcohol but would find a way.

I must again add, we've been so, so, so incredibly lucky to have been dealing with the most awesome people from council, the cops and licencing. They do see our value and are trying to help keep us open too but still needing us to adhere to the rules and regulations and be compliant. Particularly to councils ridiculous amount of red tape, we know these guys on the ground didnt make the rules but they do have to enforce them! They know our community worth tho and we are so grateful for them being as human as we are.

All this was the Wednesday before the only weekend my lil stinky sis and her kids come up to visit for Wallaby Creek! And we had 2 sold out shows ay Elixir on the weekend for comedy! At least no music so he couldn't complain.

So, I'm not completely silly and didn't CANCEL our liquor licence, I would never have anyway as they always stay with the premises and we'd want to make it as easy as possible for any new potential tenants if we had to leave. So, we started the process of getting it reinstated!

Which is where we're at right now.... back to the restaurant/ cafe licence....

Coming to a close soon guys, I promise.... again I'm sorry this is such a heavy read, I need a cuppa!