Iconic Canberra live music venue, The Phoenix, has today launched a crowdfunding campaign in an attempt to save the pub from shutting its doors permanently.
In an extensive statement posted to the venue’s Facebook page, operators detail the problems that they’ve faced since expanding into a larger space.
The issues began in early 2014 when a nearby fire caused operators to find out their landlord was not insured. In January 2015 extensive water damage from rainfall led to real estate agents, LJ Hooker, gutting the venue, which concluded in The Phoenix's operators spending approximately $250,000 of their own funds to restore the premises.
Despite the restorations, the back half of the venue was still not approved for trading. In 2017, LJ Hooker evicted the tenants from their larger premises, and are now demanding $200,000 back rent despite the premises not being fit for trade due to a number of neglected refurbishments including repainting, lack of access ramps and bathrooms not being code compliant.
Now The Phoenix have now turned to their community to help them keep their doors open. A GoFundMe page has been set up by operators with a goal of $75,000 to cover “debt to our suppliers, current landlord and lawyers”.
At the time of writing, the campaign had raised just over $9,000 after being live for 21 hours and is steadily rising.
Read the full operators statement below.
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