The Honourable Members,
Legislative Council & Legislative Assembly,
Victorian Parliament.

Dear Members

RE: From The Coal Face - A One on One Interview with a Victorian Pub Owner DO YOU CARE ENOUGH TO LISTEN?

A key part of our business is to market and promote local businesses to each other, to local community groups such as sports clubs, schools, churches, charities and more generally the wider community. In going about our business we have a unique insight into the issues being confronted by local businesses due to the forced lockdowns being implemented by our Victorian government.

Through my business, I also compile and publish regular video blogs and this week have published one that contains an interview with Andrew Watson, the owner of “The Hobson Stores”, a traditional pub located in the bayside suburb of Sandringham that Andrew has been running for thirteen years.

We implore you all to listen to this interview to see the distress that the lockdowns are causing to business owners such as Andrew and to implore you to lift these devastating restrictions on the hospitality industry IMMEDIATELY!

To access the interview click on the Bob's Vlog logo below on the right and to see Andrew's business website click on the image on the left.
With positive case numbers falling dramatically there is no genuine reason to continue to put the future of these businesses at risk. To continue to do so is destroying the livelihoods of people such as Andrew who have invested in their business and their community.

Andrew’s hotel provides employment opportunities for several people, a number of them from our the younger age groups such as students etc, who are waiting with anticipation and desperation for their employers to be able to open up for business once more. Just as importantly pubs such as Andrew’s who have resisted the temptation of having pokie machines on-site, ensure a traditional pub atmosphere that plays an extremely important part in the social fabric of our Victorian community.

We are mortified that despite a dramatic improvement in COVID-19 case numbers, not only are you not looking to lift restrictions, you are actually considering even more draconian laws that could be implemented through the Omnibus(Extra Measures) Bill currently in the Legislative Council. 

As Andrew points out in this interview, his business and many others like it have at most four weeks before they hit the point of no return. They will also require some weeks of notification to ensure a successful reopening if the government is going to remain pig-headed with no relief before October 26th.

Blind Freddy can see that the proposal for outdoor dining has holes big enough to drive a semi-trailer through, so a serious rethink is required to allow hotels, restaurants and cafes to resume indoor dining and to provide safe service as was being looked at back in July.

If you truly care about the communities you claim to represent you will watch this interview and then you will then act with all the power at your disposal to come to the rescue of business owners such as Andrew. To keep putting off relief is no longer acceptable, you need to act now before inflicting irreparable damage as opposed to the extremely serious damage that has aleady been done. 

Andrew is a “salt of the earth” Victorian and Australian; he just needs to be provided with that Australian “fair go” to bounce back. He has already engaged in that great Aussie characteristic of entrepreneurism and in doing so used his energy, money, innovation, work ethic and passion to build his business. He like so many others just needs a green light to release those character traits once more to get on with building a vibrant business and in so doing building and repairing our once great community.

Please, don’t let his interview fall on deaf ears, THE TIME TO ACT IS NOW! 

Yours sincerely 





Bob Mann
Owner/Director
The Community Forum Online Newspaper
ABN: 33 497 866 231
Mobile: 0490 823 400
The Community Forum Online Newspaper