There’s scarcely a public event goes on in Melbourne that it doesn’t trot out “the World’s Most Liveable City” tag. This was a gong awarded to Melbourne in the 90s and it’s been trading off it ever since. It’s a bit like the pathetic Uncle Rico in Napoleon Dynamite, forever telling everyone how he was once a high school football star.
Still, Melbourne did have a lot of compensations for being a grey city with stifling summers and bleak winters. According to an old Little Heroes song, Melbourne Just Isn’t New York, but it tried. Not least with its cafe culture. From the little bit of Paris that is DeGraves Street and its adjacent arcades, to its famous laneway bars and cafes, Melbourne was rightly famous for its cafe culture.
The Chinese virus and Daniel Andrews are putting a sad end to all that.
Melbourne CBD’s first rooftop bar is closing after 15 years, in a sign long Covid for business is setting in.
Madame Brussels co-owner Paula Scholes said she and business partner Michael Anderson would shut up shop later this month – a far cry from the days of “aphrodisiac orgy” parties and swanky anniversary celebrations.
For many years, I commuted to Melbourne every day. For long after, I’ve been a regular visitor. But, on my last visit, I noticed something different about the city. It was starting to resemble the final scenes of On The Beach, the bleak post-apocalypse story filmed in Melbourne. Even on a Friday lunchtime, the city streets were subdued. Empty shopfronts were everywhere. Even the famous Chinatown was deserted.
It was a sad fate for a once-vibrant city. It might have been hoped that the city would survive COVID, but that’s looking less and less likely.
“Before Covid we went through that terrible time of bushfires … and then Covid hit. We worked through it. We could probably make it through winter – maybe. But it’s too stressful,” she said. As nightclubs and dance floors reopened in Victoria from midnight on Thursday and more patrons were allowed into venues, Ms Scholes declared it was time for the Bourke St bar’s last hurrah.
“I’ve had a lot of emails, phone calls and text messages from (former) staff to say Madame Brussels wasn’t just a job, it’s where (they) grew up,” she said.
“It was a place … to mature and learn the ropes. To learn rules, learn (work) ethic, learn manners, learn about entertainment and about service.”
This is the other face of COVID devastation: it’s not just the customers vanishing, it’s the business-owners and the workers.
Malvern East high tea and wedding venue The Gables is another business that closed last Friday due to Covid-19 lockdowns after it operated under the ownership of Jessica Souter for 26 years.
“Trying to manage a wedding and event venue through Covid has just been hell. But these recent (lockdowns) have just been the nail in the coffin,” Ms Souter said. “Small business has been absolutely decimated. And they don’t talk about it, but drive down the main streets and just look at the shop fronts. They are just mum-and-dad businesses like me who quietly close because we can’t keep going”[…]
Forty-one Victorian food and accommodation businesses could not pay their debts in the March quarter, with monthly insolvencies rising from January to April, according to data from the Australian Securities & Investments Commission.
Business Victoria statistics in turn show that without international tourists the number of domestic visitors also plummeted along with spending.
There were 28.3 million domestic visitors in Melbourne in the year to March last year. That dropped to 13.4 million in the following year.
The Australian
An empty shopfront is one of the saddest sights in a city. Every small business is much more than just a business: it’s someone’s hopes and dreams. Probably the biggest investment in their lives. It’s people’s jobs. It’s someone’s favourite little place.
And it’s all going – killed at the hands of people whose jobs and incomes face no threat from the havoc they impose on everyone else.
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