Health food it ain’t,but it’s magical at soaking up the booze. Handily located on Oxford Street near the Unicorn Hotel,the diner was a perfectly placed pit stop on the way home to the eastern suburbs after a big night.
Now that’s all been put to an end. A month ago,Woollahra Council rejected Chowdury’s bid to officially extend his trading hours to 3am on Friday and Saturday nights. It appears the diner had been operating until 3am in breach of its DA conditions – without an issue – for years.
The DA refusal notice mentioned the kebab joint could have an “adverse impact upon the acoustic and visual privacy of neighbouring lands”,and declared the provision of late-night sustenance was “not in the public interest”. It is unknown if the council received complaints about noise.
The council warned Chowdury that,if he continued to stay open too late,he would be fined.
A revolt of sorts is now under way – not by Chowdury,who has asked a planner to review the DA and has no criticism of Woollahra Council,but by the IHD community. It has even caught the attention of politicians vying for the knife-edge seat of Wentworth at the federal election.
Bondi Lines – a popular Instagram page that provides punters with real-time updates on the vibe and queues at pubs and clubs popular with eastern suburbs partygoers – regularly features IHD as a venue on its feed.
On Wednesday night,the page posted about the diner’s plight,and launched a petition and an online crowdfunding campaign to help compensate IHD for lost revenue.