City Beat: Wallace Bishop closes Toombul store after 50 years

It was one of the original tenants at this northside Brisbane shopping centre when it opened in 1967, but weeks after a ram raid this business icon is shutting its doors at the centre.

OUT OF TIME AT TOOMBUL

QUEENSLAND business icon Wallace Bishop has shocked locals by shutting its Toombul Shopping Centre store after more than half a century.

The closure of the store at Toombul, where Wallace Bishop has been a tenant since the centre opened in 1967, comes only weeks after the outlet was the victim of a ram raid.

A car was driven into the front of Wallace Bishop and the adjacent Prouds Jewellers on January 25 and an amount of stock stolen.

Wallace Bishop chief executive Stuart Bishop said the ram raid had caused significant damage to the shop. “As a result of the break-in, the damage to the store was so significant that a decision was made to close it,” says Bishop. “This decision didn’t come lightly as we have been in the centre from the date it opened.” Bishop says the company, which operates more than 50 stores around the country, is looking for opportunities in other locations.

The closure comes amid increasingly tough times for retailers everywhere. Wallace Bishop Junior, the grandson of the firm’s founder Wallace Bishop Senior, told your diarist last year that today’s retail environment is the worst the 102-year-old firm has ever experienced. Retailers were doing it increasingly tough as the tight economy meant people had less money to spend. “Today’s climate is very difficult for us,” said the 84-year old after the family company was inducted into the Queensland Business Leaders Hall of Fame.

Wallace Bishop Toombul is boarded up. Photo: Glen Norris

“People are looking after their money and are looking for value. This is probably the toughest period we have gone through.”

He said Toombul was the first suburban site for the company after previously being located in Brisbane’s CBD. “We started in Toombul and then others opened at Mt Gravatt and Pacific Fair,” he said last year. Police said an 18-year-old man has been charged following the ram raid. Comment also has been sought from Toombul Shopping Centre management.

MERE MALE

A City Beat reader has taken us to task over our “fixation” with women getting elected to the board of the formerly all-male Tattersalls Club, aka Queen St Workers Club.

“Why not have a forensic examination of the Royal Queensland Golf Club or the Presbyterian & Methodist Schools’ Association?” she asled. “How many women are on their boards? What measures are they implementing to be progressive and inclusive?

“I’m not a member of these clubs/organisations, but there are ‘boys’ club’ environments in a number of organisations across Brisbane. It by no means is limited to the Tattersalls Club.”

Our reader appears to have a point on female representation on the two organisations she mentions.  Anne Foley is the only director of the nine-member Royal Queensland Golf Club board while the Presbyterian & Methodist Schools’ Association has two female directors, Margaret Berry and Helen Murray, on its 10-member board.

HOUSE OF STUART

STILL on Tattersalls and we can confirm that president Stuart Fraser will be standing down at next month’s annual general meeting have served the maximum three terms.

He also is not contesting a seat on the board, ending a 16 year involvement with the committee. Fraser, who also serves as treasurer of the LNP, has been widely praised for his efforts in reforming club rules to allow women members.

Tattersalls Club president Stuart Fraser.

NUMBER CRUNCHERS

PLENTY of bean counters and business types holding court at this week’s Xero Roadshow and HLB Mann Judd annual economic update.  

Spotted at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre shindig were former taxi tycoon Neil Ford, Peter Lockhart from DDH, Katherine Youhanna from Channel Capital and Janet Steenkamp from Queensland-based Chequers Financial Services.

McGees Property director Greg Clarke was seen discussing sailing and international shares with presenter and Olympian Tom King. King, who now runs his Nanuk Funds Management business from Brisbane, was asking investors to lower their return targets to single digits following China’s inevitable slowing. King specialises in sustainable investing and has followed what he preaches by installing solar panels on his abode

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