Details of Jamie Webb’s $760k Brisbane bar crash revealed

A major Brisbane bar operator’s company has been put into liquidation by creditors who are owed $760,000 after the Caxton Street venue went bust. But they will claw nothing back from the wreckage.

Jamie Webb at Lefty's Old Time bar. Photo: Supplied

CREDITORS of the Brisbane company which formerly operated Lefty’s Old Time Music Hall pulled the plug yesterday and tipped it into liquidation.

Now-defunct Majid Pty Ltd, operated by major Brisbane hospitality identity Jamie Webb, sold the still-trading Caxton Street venue to a former employee before the company came unstuck in late October.

MAJOR BRISBANE BAR OPERATOR GOES BUST

A report to Majid creditors showed that nearly $761,000 was owing to more than 70 unsecured parties, mostly suppliers.

They will claw back nothing from the wreckage.

Bartender Chris Drage ("Bang Bang") and owner Jamie Webb at the upstairs bar at Lefty's (Caxton St Petrie Terrace) before it opened

Not surprisingly, the biggest single creditor was the tax man, who was chasing $206,537.

But plenty of small operators have also been burned in the crash, including lots of craft beer makers.

Among them are Black Hops, Bridge Road, Fonzie Abbott, Green Beacon, Moon Dog, Mountain Goat and Your Mates.

Webb, who had a mixed record of success running bars and restaurants since 2010, didn’t return City Beat’s call seeking comment.

Jamie Webb and Jonathan Byrant at Lefty's. Pic Mark Cranitch.

But in an email he likened the effect of ID scanning laws introduced in July last year to someone having to absorb “a pay cut of 25 per cent for no reason that made sense’’.

“Unfortunately we really underestimated the detrimental effect the ID scanners had on business in Brisbane….It took us a year and a half to adapt the business to these new laws, which meant cutting jobs, fewer musicians playing and reducing our already limited trading hours,’’ Webb said.

“I feel I have given Brisbane much in the hospitality world over the past nine years and did a lot to bring Brisbane out of the dark ages culturally.’’