Precious the cat being banished from home at Koumala Hotel, council cites state law

A much-loved cat who spends her days lounging on a couch in a Queensland pub pool room could be booted from her favourite watering hole, with a local councillor saying ‘the law is the law’.

Precious the cat has called the Koumala Hotel her home for 14 years.

Believed to be 18 years old, she’s been looked after by two sets of publicans and spends most of her days lounging on a couch in the pub’s pool room.

But now she’s been asked to leave by Mackay Regional Council, which it claims spotted her in a ‘food handling area’ in the hotel 12 months ago, and again this week.

It’s caused an outpour of concern and claims of cruelty in the community, who have come to love patting Precious at the pub.

Council has asked Precious’ owners, Rowena and Ray Colgrave, to either rehome her or move her away from food handling areas.

Precious the cat being booted from the Koumala Hotel, her home of 14 years. Picture: Koumala Hotel/Facebook

Under Queensland law, that covers “making, manufacturing, producing, collecting, extracting, processing, storing, transporting, delivering, preparing, treating, preserving, packing, cooking, thawing, serving and displaying of food”.

The Colgraves have owned the Koumala Hotel for eight years, buying it from Dave and Kerry Marchant, so Precious has been there for six years longer than them.

Rowena clarified council haven’t told her to just ‘evict the cat’.

“They’ve given me the option for a solution, we’re just trying to come up with a satisfactory solution that won’t be cruel on her.”

The hotel is a classic two-storey Queenslander with rooms that flow into each other, and Rowena doesn’t want Precious to spend her last years locked in a room with a litter box, or outside in an enclosure in the summer heat.

Rowena said tourists love seeing a pub cat.

“Lots of country hotels have a pub cat, and they know the reason why — to help with vermin. It’s the crush season, and mice and rats come out of the canefields.

“It annoys me to think council would prefer we have rat poison and rat traps around the place when we have children around.”

Mackay councillor Marty Bella defended council employees, who he said “don’t deserve the flogging they’re getting”.

“They’re not going to confiscate the cat,” Mr Bella said.

“It’s just under the health regulations you can’t have those animals in food handling consumption areas.”

Mackay Regional Council said it “continues to work with the licensee of a hotel on a positive solution to ensure a cat is not in food handling areas at the premises”.

Community Services Director Janine McKay said discussions were first held more than 12 months ago.

“When our officers first observed the cat 12 months ago, the legislation was explained to the licensee and options suggested,” she said.

Rowena described that first inspection as a ‘misunderstanding’, and she was left with the impression that all was fine so long as she fed the cat at the back door.

Mr Bella said it doesn’t matter if it’s the Koumala pub or the top restaurant in Mackay.

“The law is the law,” he said.

“Justice has got to be blind, you can’t apply the rules to some and not others, that’s the essence of corruption isn’t it?

“People should look up toxoplasmosis and other things that can happen.”

Rowena pointed out that someone had “obviously” turned a blind eye to Precious given she had been there for 14 years.

“I understand they’re trying to do a job but the world’s not black and white,” she said.

“There is a little bit of grey. She’s only got a couple of years left in her.”

Originally published as Precious the cat being banished from home at Koumala Hotel, council cites state law