News / Business
Temporary reprieve for New Age Coffee
Owner will meet with VicTrack next week to discuss eviction order
Mark Phillips
A POPULAR Brunswick café has been given a glimmer of hope it may be able to continue operating from its current premises after VicTrack postponed an eviction order.
New Age Coffee had been given just five business days notice that it had to move out of its Dawson Street building by last Monday.
The eviction notice had been conveyed to the café’s owner, Emily Coppock, by her landlord, leaving Coppock without a home for her six-year-old business.
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But on Monday, Coppock was given an extension of at least another week and she has high hopes of further negotiations with VicTrack, which owns the land and building that is sub-leased to her business.
“I feel so much better – I was cooked last week,” Coppock said on Wednesday after VicTrack had been in contact to apologise to her about the distress the short notice of eviction had caused.
She said that “fingers crossed” she was hoping to negotiate a permit that would allow her to remain at the former warehouse next to the Upfield railway line.
Coppock had originally been told by her landlord on November 30 that she would have to vacate the building by December 9 because VicTrack had determined operating a café or any other retail business was not permitted in the building.
The order left Coppock stunned as she had been running her café there on a month-by-month lease since 2019.
VicTrack told Brunswick Voice last week that it understood the order to vacate was distressing for Coppock, but blamed her landlord for not notifying her earlier of its decision after a long period of discussions.
A petition launched by one of Coppock’s employees calling on VicTrack to reconsider the decision and to provide a fair and reasonable timeline for New Age to relocate has now got 4642 signatures towards a revised goal of 5000.
Coppock’s landlord has not returned calls from Brunswick Voice. VicTrack did not respond to a request for further information about negotiations with Coppock.
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