Eateries fed up with street food stalls
A barney has broken out between business owners and councillors over a wildly popular hawkers market running in Victoria Park on Friday nights.
The TGIF Hawkers Market originally ran as a trial in a laneway on the Victoria Park strip and has exploded in popularity since moving to the nearby John McMillan Park in November.
Thousands of people, mostly young families, enjoy the casual atmosphere and range of cheap, tasty meals every week.
But it has outraged some of the veteran restaurateurs who started the strip, which is one of Perth's trendiest food destinations.
The street food revolution is finally catching on across Perth, but as the Victoria Park council is finding out, it has its pitfalls.
Christine Harding and Sebastian Pagana opened two of the first restaurants on the strip about 20 years ago, when the area's biggest attraction was its car yards.
They are furious with the council for allowing 30 food stalls to operate 150m from the strip without consulting ratepaying business owners. "My takings are down 25 per cent on Friday nights and the foot traffic has dropped right off," Ms Harding said.
"The councillors haven't recognised how much damage it's doing to the people who are trying to establish themselves.
"Do they want the restaurants or the vans?"
Victoria Park Mayor Trevor Vaughan said he believed the market could coexist with the strip for one night a week and bring new eyes to the restaurants.
Mr Vaughan said councillors saw an opportunity to add to the vibrancy of the area and took it.
"Rather than try to go through the bureaucracy of it, if we think it will be good for the town, we'll go ahead and do it," he said.
That approach has frustrated Mr Pagana, the owner of Sebastian's Italian Cafe, who stressed his gripe was with the location, not the street food concept.
"There are over 60 restaurants here, so if they're trying to stimulate the area, I think it's already stimulated," he said.
It is a concept other councils, such as Perth, Fremantle and Vincent, have also been grappling with in recent months, running trials and consulting business owners.
Their strategies have dealt more directly with limiting vendor numbers and locations to protect established businesses.
Vincent Mayor John Carey said the town's draft mobile vendor policy would never allow the Victoria Park situation.
"For us, it's about trying to activate town centres," he said.
"Food is done very well in Leederville and Mt Lawley, for example, so why would we put anything there?"
