It’s been a tough few months for Rainbow Wholefoods owner Tony Stillone. His north Lismore shop has been in danger of closing down and the stress of dealing with bureaucracy saw him admitted to hospital with high blood pressure recently.

Tony said it was due to his healthy vegan diet and his naturopathic knowledge of herbs and nutrition that saw him quickly pull through what would have been called a heart attack in a weaker person.

He said hospital gave him food poisoning and despite now having lost 10 kilograms in weight, he’s feeling stronger and he is “fighting to keep his shop open”.

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A string of events, including what he calls a “bureaucratic nightmare” of dealing with building fire and safety regulation codes, Lismore City Council and the building’s owner, fires, flood and Covid-19, lead him to announce he would close the shop in September.

But, since then, he has rallied the local community for assistance and has now enlisted the help of legal representative Al Oshlak.

Now, it seems Tony is intent on staying open – at least until March next year.

At the heart of the issue is a dispute between the building’s owner and Tony - about who has to pay for a $150,000 fire safety wall at the back of the building.

The background story

Tony has been renting and operating Rainbow Wholefoods in the current Terania Street location for 16 years.

A Lismore City Council spokesperson told the Lismore App that in 2006, Council compliance officers identified that there were Fire, Health and Safety problems in the building which needed fixed and notified the building’s owner, Wagner Farquar Property Pty Ltd.

Then in 2013, compliance action was taken by Council - as the building was being used for commercial purposes without a relevant Development Application (DA).

In 2014, the building’s owner then lodged a DA with Council, which was approved if the owner guaranteed to undertake work on the fire, health and safety issues.

Council said that in 2015, no work had commenced and Council ordered the work to be done.

Now, in 2020, Council said “after five years with no work, the Health Officer made a report that no work had been done and deemed the building not safe and a compliance action review was undertaken.”

Council also reported that Council staff worked with Tony to help him apply for grants to get back on track after the 2017 flood.

Responsibility

Tony said based on the legal advice of Mr Oshlak, he believes the responsibility for undertaking the work lies with the building’s owner.

“Now we are telling the real estate rental agents we are staying until March and it’s up to them to deal with Council,” he said. “Al has also written to Council telling them this.”

Tony said even though he was not directly responsible for doing the work, he had already spent $20,000 undertaking some of the health and safety work identified by Council (like providing Hazmats) - as it related to his business of selling food.

Tony said he would be happy get a bank loan and undertake the work on the fire wall if he was the owner of the building.

“I already made an offer of $150,000 to buy the building off the owner, but the offer has not been accepted,” he said.

“And Council won’t let me submit another DA until Farquar’s DA is approved, or amended.”

He said he recently stopped selling food from the shop’s café because he couldn’t submit the new, appropriate DA to Council because of the current dispute over the firewall DA.

Legals

Tony’s legal representative Al Oshlak said the issue surrounding the compliance DA was a technical one.

“The DA for compliance construction of a fire wall is addressed to Farquar, the owner,” Mr Oshlak said. “That means he is the one who can legally deal with it. At the moment, Tony is not responsible.

“If the owner would sell the building at reasonable price to Tony, he can bring it to a good compliant state – or do what Council request him to comply with. The other option is to wait until Council prosecutes.

“If council tries to take Tony to court they would lose.”

Mr Oshlak said after the 2017 flood, Council health inspectors visited and helped him fix things, but didn’t say anything about a compliance DA.

“Tony never saw that DA until Council told him about it in March this year."

Is it necessary?

Mr Oshlak also said the building doesn’t actually need a fire wall, as there no neighbours.

“There used to be an adjoining property shed that’s been removed,” he said. “The development compliance needs of the building need to be reviewed – and again that is Farquar’s responsibility.

“Lismore City Council needs to issue a moratorium on this work and not harass Tony.

“Tony stayed open six days a week through the drought, flood and he survived Covid – but he might not survive Lismore City Council.

“So many others rely on his business - what about the organic farmers that sell 1.5 million a year in produce to him?”

The future

Tony said his family are helping him out in the shop now and his daughters are staffing the shop.

He also hopes to get the current situation sorted so he can submit a new DA to get his cafe food business at Rainbow Wholefoods up and running again.

“Life is good and I’m going to fight it - provided the pandemic doesn’t play out and destroy it,” he said.