City of Bunbury gives Filipino cafe Kusina Ni Lola green light to extend trading hours despite protests

A Bunbury business owner has won her battle to keep her newly launched Filipino cafe open later every night despite a last ditch effort by nearby residents. The City of Bunbury last week gave Kusina Ni Lola owner Yoshi Ramos the green light to extend the venue’s trading hours to 9pm on weeknights and 7pm on weekends. The takeaway cafe on Prosser Street, which is the only Filipino eatery in Bunbury, swung its doors open earlier this month, but its original Tenancy D restaurant/cafe licence restricted it to 3pm during the week and 2pm on Saturdays and Sundays. The motion was met with two deputations from residents living adjacent to or directly next to the cafe, expressing concerns for noise, light and traffic after hours in a residential area. Nearby resident Sharon Gear said at the ordinary meeting last Tuesday a large increase in operating hours would mean a “loss of quiet enjoyment” on her property. “The windows of (the cafe) face the front of my house and my bedroom . . . the increased hours of operation together with food product preparation before trading times will disrupt my sleep, as the windows shine directly into my bedroom . . . this will be prejudicial to my health,” she said. Another neighbour, Stephen Cass, said at the meeting it would mean customers “banging car doors” while getting takeaway “late at night”. It came after four neighbouring residences objected to the initial advertisement of extended hours put out by cafe ownership. The two other businesses in the lot, a tutoring facility and a hairdresser, operate within office hours. Ms Ramos said she was “surprised” the bid went through, but was grateful to be given the chance to grow her business. “I didn’t expect it,” she said. “Sometimes you get disappointed after the result when you expect it, so I just always expect nothing.” The cafe officially opened for trading on November 8 — the day the motion was passed — Ms Ramos looking to “fill a hole” in the market, having emigrated to Australia from the Philippines in 2013 and missing her local cuisine. “There’s Chinese, there’s Malaysian, there’s Thai food but there’s no Filipino food,” she said. “There’s a lot of Filipino people that live here and it’s really on the rise.” Glenda Kingdon, who owns the property out of which the cafe operates said she was “very happy” the City were supporting local businesses. “It’s great to see people coming to Bunbury and starting up a business, because it’s hard to start a business and just give it a go so we’ve got to foster that,” she said. “There’s a lot of vacant shops in Bunbury so when we do get a new person in we should should be supporting them.”