Bureaucrats ban cafe customers from garden home of Australia’s Top Chicken
Little Bird has been voted Australia’s Top Chicken but the cafe where she struts her stuff has been banned from serving customers in the garden with the free range hens.
NSW
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The people have spoken and Little Bird has been voted Australia’s Top Chicken – but bureaucratic red tape is preventing her from spending time with her adoring public.
Little Bird is the star attraction at Moorland Cottage – the chook cafe between Taree and Port Macquarie on the Mid North Coast – and took out the top award this week after more than 100,000 people voted for her.
But fun police from the Midcoast Council have ruffled feathers by ruling that customers at the cafe can no longer dine with the nation’s most popular chicken and her coterie of hens roaming free among them.
“It’s just crazy,” Moorland Cottage general manager Christina Jones said. “We have operated for three years with free range chickens running around our garden without a problem.”
However one visitor to the chook cafe was surprised to be served in the garden surrounded by chickens and filed a complaint. Council apparatchiks promptly banned service in the garden.
“People could eat without the chickens in the cafe or the courtyard but many loved to eat in the garden with the free range chickens,” Ms Jones said. “How is it different from a cafe with kangaroos roaming around or ones that are dog and cat friendly?”
When the Good Life Backyard top chicken competition came up the cafe’s loyal customers hatched a plan to vote Little Bird, an egg-laying Buff Laced Polish Frizzle, into the top spot.
“They hoped the Council would see how popular the chickens are and reverse the ban,” Ms Jones said. “Currently people can only go into the garden with take away. It is red tape gone mad.”
On the day Little Bird took the top honour Ms Jones met with Midcoast Council general manager Adrian Panuccio in the hope the rooster booster award would make him crack.
The hard boiled bureaucrat refused to budge and kept the unpopular ban on dining with free range hens in place. A council spokeswoman said it was enforcing Food Authority regulations.
“Under the NSW Food Authority’s Food Standards Code animals (other than assistance animals and dogs) are prohibited in areas where food is handled and this includes serving in dining areas,” the spokeswoman said.
“(Ms Jones) wants to provide table service in the garden area. This contravenes the Food Standards Code which applies to all food businesses.”
Customers have reacted furiously to the council response and are now vowing to make their next vote count and bring the chickens home to roost at the council elections.
On the Moorland Cafe’s Facebook page one contributor wrote that talking to the Midcoast Council was like trying to “nail jelly to a tree”.
Another wrote: “Council elections are on 14 September this year … we have a chance to make ourselves heard.”
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