The City of Yarra councillor Steve Jolly, of the Socialist Party, is more active than most councillors in engaging with residents and ratepayers. He sometimes has a stall outside Woolworths on Smith St, and it was there on Thursday 14 March that Woolworths management called the police in an attempt to evict Jolly from the footpath.
Courtesy Steve Jolly / Twitter / photographer: unknown / copyright: used under the fair dealings provisions of the Copyright Act 1968 / 2013
Jolly reported on Friday 15 March on Twitter that ‘Wollies @ Smith St called police on our 8-yr long stall yesterday!‘ According to Jolly, ‘Police backed our right to be there, leaving Woolies management feeling rather deflated‘.
Courtesy Steve Jolly / Twitter / photographer: unknown / copyright: used under the fair dealings provisions of the Copyright Act 1968 / 2013
What did the goons from Woolworths think they were doing? The footpath is public space, and Jolly is an elected representative of the people of the City of Yarra. A business has no right to interfere with the legitimate work of a local government representative in engaging with his electorate or to dictate how the public uses public space.
Jolly claims that Woolworths management tried to do the same thing a month ago with the same result – the police told them that Jolly was within his rights to be where was doing what he was doing. This repeated behaviour is disturbing and raises a number of questions.
Why was a corporation attempting to convince the state to use its coercive powers to intimidate an elected political representative? Why was Woolworths attempting to suppress freedom of association and freedom of speech? Why was Woolworths wasting the police’s time by repeating their petty complaint when they already knew they were in the wrong and had been told so a month ago by the police?
Woolworths is a bad local corporate citizen and local residents should know who they’re buying from. Woolworths want your money but they don’t want you to think for yourself or engage with your elected local government representative. Fuck you Woolworths.
17 March 2013 at 6:27 am
Did they have a council permit to conduct the stall?
If they did, did they meet the guidelines?
http://www.yarracity.vic.gov.au/Business/Permits-and-regulations/Footpath-trading/
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17 March 2013 at 8:12 am
I’m not sure if those requirements apply for consultation, not trading. As Jolly is a City of Yarra councillor I assume he knows the requirements, and as the police did not require him to move it seems likely that he met the relevant requirements.
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17 March 2013 at 8:57 am
Massive PR fail for Woolies (maybe a new gung-ho Manager?), particularly as they seem to be happy to allow sundry beggars and other pests to take up semi-permanent residence in their entrance…
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17 March 2013 at 9:15 am
Perhaps but in my experience Jolly is prepared to overlook the need for groups to obtain the required permissions if he supports the goal of the people.
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/councils-clash-over-park-strife-20130103-2c6z4.html
And I think bill posting is a breach of the law
https://twitter.com/stephenjolly99/status/312659289376452608/photo/1
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17 March 2013 at 9:34 am
Perhaps whoever replaced Simon Berger, Mr Chaff bag himself at Woolworths as Community and Government Relations Manager could answer this question.
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17 March 2013 at 1:36 pm
I am no friend of Steve Jolly and on many occasions I have disagreed with his stand on some local government issues but in this instance I must support him.
Mr Jolly is campaigning against the privatisation of the Collingwood and Fitzroy public housing estates and is making the community aware of the issues.
Woolworths on the other hand have sold alcohol to many of the people who have gathered in the area and have continued to sell the alcohol even when a large number of them have become completly legless. A few years ago they declined to change the opening hours of their bottle shop from 8.00 AM to 10 AM on the grounds that it was a national policy to open all of their liquor outlets at 8.00 AM. They have rarely contacted the police when large numbers of intoxicated and often violent men have gathered in the same spot as Mr Jolly now uses for constructive community engagement.
Woolworths have and still do cause a lot of damage to the other businesses in and around Smith Street by selling cheap inferior imported goods that destroy the pricing structure of the small businesses that manufacture high quality items that cost more. An example of this is their cakes. Every time there is a festive occasion they sell cheap mud cakes for $5.00 this is below the cost of production and is a loss leader. They do the same thing with flowers, fruit and vegetables, and many other items that they can source from overseas in order to maintain their hegemony. Woolworths is not a good corporate citizen and if you take the time to observe, have very little engagement with the local community. I would suggest that the attack on Steve Jolly goes much further that a local issue and is part of the framework of globalization which aims to destroy the structures of our local communities in order to achieve total domination for a select few.
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17 March 2013 at 1:58 pm
A couple of months ago, I was offered a pamphlet from an activist out the front of Woolies on Smith St. detailing Woolworths’ ownership of poker machines and the revenue they derive from gambling. There was nothing offensive or untrue in the information provided to me in public space out the front of the supermarket, as far as I could tell. Once inside the store, however, a security guard approached me and asked me to hand over the pamphlet – I declined, saying that it was none of his business, and that the flyer was my personal property. I saw others hand their flyer over to Woolworths (over zealous) security. Very disturbing behaviour on the part of this company, indeed!
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17 March 2013 at 8:30 pm
That is bizarre behaviour – did they think they could make all the pamphlets disappear?
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18 March 2013 at 8:51 am
Political or religious activities in a public space require no permits…
Just so you know
PS: I work for the City of Melbourne… We appreciate being notified of such activities, but it is not a legal requirement.
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6 April 2013 at 10:37 pm
Dan,
Does this still apply if the political or religious tout is using amplification?
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7 April 2013 at 1:03 pm
Pretty sure local gov’t wouldn’t get involved… It may be an EPA or Police matter at that point.
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7 April 2013 at 3:43 pm
The local government is involved as one of the people being harassed by Woolworths staff is an elected councillor.
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