MU Convenience Store disputes Monash University Covid rent relief at VCAT
A convenience store has won its battle to have almost a year’s worth of rent waived after claiming a Melbourne university tried to stop the store selling tobacco.
South East
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A small convenience store based at Monash University claims the uni would only offer it rent relief during Covid pandemic if it stopped selling cigarettes, a tribunal heard.
MU Convenience store fought at VCAT to have the vast majority of its rent waived from April 2021 to January 15, 2022.
The tribunal heard the convenience store first opened its doors on February 3, 2020 — just after Covid was declared a public health emergency by the World Health Organisation
Monash University initiated a rent relief scheme for stores on the campus in March 2020, however, as the pandemic continued negotiations eventually broke down between the university and convenience store.
At the tribunal, Monash University claimed the store was not eligible for rent relief after January 15, 2022, as the store owner did not make a valid rent relief application.
While the store tenant asserted the university had used its “precarious financial position, due to the impacts of Covid-19, to leverage rental assistance to remove tobacco products,” the tribunal heard.
At one point, during rent relief negotiations, the university offered to waive 100 per cent of the store’s rent from April 1, 2021, to February 2022, and offered the owner a two year lease extension, if the convenience store stopped selling tobacco products, the tribunal heard.
The convenience store’s owner rejected that offer and estimated the cost of removing cigarettes would be $995,002.
In her decision, tribunal member Holly Nash found the university “sought to remove the sale of tobacco products” from the store and did not offer “a commercially viable” alternative.
The store was successful in its bid to have its rent waived.
The university won a counterclaim for unpaid electricity costs.
