By Vanessa Cavasinni, editor Australian Hotelier
To say thank you to the emergency services and volunteers who banded together to help Northern Beaches residents during the weekend’s wild storm, The Collaroy will tonight be putting on an hour of discounted food and drinks – with the proceeds of sales to be donated to the same emergency services.
Several waterfront properties in Collaroy were significantly damaged over the weekend during an intense storm that hit Australia’s eastern seaboard, including The Collaroy and The Beach Club Collaroy.
The Collaroy was lucky to get away with some basement flooding, and was able to trade the next day, while The Beach Club had their balcony partially collapse and have not traded all week. Since then, a construction crew has removed the balcony, and operator Rob MCConnell is hoping to get the venue trading again on Saturday.
On Monday morning, as another king tide was expected, emergency services, surf life saving volunteers, community members and rural fire services – from as far away as Parramatta – worked together for more than 12 hours to sandbag other properties that were vulnerable to damage.
By way of thanks, The Collaroy announced earlier in the week that tonight they would be hosting an hour of free food and drinks for all emergency service volunteers, in a local community initiative. However due to instructions received by licensing authorities, free beverages are not to be permitted.
Instead, soft drinks will be complimentary, while tap beer and house wine will be sold for $3.50 from 5:30-6:30pm. The money received for beverages will be donated to emergency services.
“It’s a really good thing. It’s nice that The Collaroy stepped up and have done that to acknowledge it,” said Steve McInnes, CEO of Northern Beaches Surf Life Saving
“The Collaroy Hotel has always been about local, community spirit, we pride ourselves on being a community hub for many northern beaches locals and cannot think of a better way to say thank you to our local heroes, ” said Mitchell Waugh, CEO of Public House Management Group.