Tazzy Tyres: How Dan Smart got burnt by Aaron Vasicek association

“I’ve had debt collectors checking serial numbers”: A Tasmanian man’s brief association with the director of a failed string of tyre companies still affects his business.

Launceston small businessman Dan Smart, owner of two Tazzy Tyres & Mechanical outlets, says he is still being burnt by a brief association with Aaron Vasicek. Picture: Alex Treacy

A Tasmanian businessman who owns two successful tyre shops says he still has debt collectors coming in and checking his machine serial numbers due to an unfortunate association with the man behind the $2m collapse of a chain of a similar name.

Launceston man Dan Smart was aged 21 when, in 2016, he had the opportunity of taking up a site at Kings Meadows, he told the Mercury.

He got in touch with Hobart’s Aaron Luke Vasicek, a man who, on the face of it, seemed like a model of success, having opened a string of Tazzy Tyres stores in the preceding years.

Vasicek’s business, however, was not what it seemed.

His companies, Tazzy Tyres Wholesale, Tazzy Tyres Accessories, Tazzy Tyres Retail and Tazzy Tyres, subsequently collapsed in 2018, owing a combined $2m.

Aaron Luke Vasicek. Photo: LinkedIn

Last month, corporate regulator ASIC banned Vasicek, 34, from being the director of a company for five years amid allegations he stripped assets from the companies while avoiding their $1,944,418 worth of debts, a practice known as ‘phoenixing’.

Vasicek was subsequently arrested in New South Wales and extradited to Queensland, where he was charged with trafficking cocaine and MDMA from Tasmania to Queensland, an operation allegedly involving Hobart man Mitchell John Campbell, 32.

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All this lay in the future. Mr Smart thought it looked like a great deal at the time. He said he paid a licensing fee and opened his Kings Meadows store in February 2016.

“I went and put my house on the line, I went for it. I thought I was buying into a corporate group like Bob Jane, but that’s not what it was at all. I was buying into a cowboy business,” Mr Smart said.

“I realised the writing was on the wall with what he was doing, it was not a good thing.

“We then went separate very heavily.”

Launceston small businessman Dan Smart, owner of two Tazzy Tyres & Mechanical outlets, says he is still being burnt by a brief association with Aaron Vasicek. Picture: Alex Treacy

He established his own corporate structure for Tazzy Tyres Kings Meadows, changed its name to Tazzy Tyres & Mechanical, and went on to open a second store in Devonport. The two stores employ a combined 23 staff.

However, the association, however brief, with Vasicek has burnt and will continue to burn him, Mr Smart said.

“It has for years, this is not the first type of conversation I’ve had about this,” he said.

“Suppliers were one of the big ones, they wouldn’t even talk to me.

“I’ve had debt collectors come in looking for my hoist, checking serial numbers. It’s a real pity because it’s such a good business.”

Vasicek, who was charged in October last year, appeared in Maroochydore Magistrates Court on February 23, where his charges were committed to the District Court. His application for bail was previously refused and he remains remanded in custody.