TRACEY BENDINGER | Local News | Contact

A once happy and greedy little publican is today sitting on his pub stoop grieving as he watches pensioner after pensioner spend their hard-saved money on living essentials rather than cramming it into his pokies.

“It’s bullshit!” he whinged to our reporter who was standing two metres away.

“How can they just use me like this?”

“It’s so unfair” he sulked.

Tim’s pensioner woes are just another example of the extent that this global pandemic is affecting local businesses.

“What about us pubbies? You don’t see us getting any hand-outs,” Tim said.

The hospitality industry is seeing some support for the government, but publicans who prey on peoples’ addiction aren’t really getting any pieces of the pie.

According to a report, pokie operators will forgo about $7.5 billion in pokie revenue over the 6-month shutdown period – an amount that Tim thinks he and his fellow pub and club owners should be entitled to.

While it is tough that Tim is losing out on 80% of his revenue, it’s worth noting that this means the pensioners will actually end up with some leftover money at the end of the week instead of scrounging dollars out of their bathroom drawers.

More to come.

