For the past few days, Lady Chu’s outspoken owner Nahji Chu has been enjoying a bit of reprieve from the “interrogation lights” that sparked the latest fight in her long-running war with the City of Sydney council that started some 14 months ago.
Chu opened Lady Chu on Roslyn St in Potts Point during the pandemic. In the years since, the restaurateur has become known not just among locals but across Sydney for her colourful social media presence and full-bodied replies to negative Google reviews.
Just last year, she had a bust-up with council over furniture and planters supposedly obstructing the footpath, as this column noted at the time. Then there was the installation of bright lights on Roslyn Street about 14 months ago. Chu has been on the warpath since.
The long-running feud escalated this month, when Chu decided to take matters into her own hands and paint over the lights to diffuse their output. Contacted by CBD on Tuesday, an apoplectic Chu said City of Sydney chief executive Monica Barone had written to her to say the move was a criminal offence and she should soon expect to receive a cleaning bill.
“I’ve yet to receive the cleaning bill from Monica the CEO. And if she does send me a bill, I’m going to take her to court. A cleaning bill for doing her job? I don’t think so. There’s going to be a mass protest … She needs to resign,” Chu said over the course of an 11-minute phone call rich with expletives.
Barone isn’t the only one in Chu’s crosshairs. Chu has also called on Lord Mayor Clover Moore, 80, to take a “redundancy package”. She even offered to buy the mayor “the best wheelchair money can buy”.
Unprompted, she also unloaded on Liberal councillor Lyndon Gannon, who she branded the “councillor for outdoor dining”, after he campaigned to keep Sydney “al fresco”.
“We’re all frustrated by the fact that he walks around town asking people ‘what’s your favourite dating place’. Then I go in and go, ‘Lyndon, just help us out, we already have Time Out, we already have Broadsheet. What the f— are you doing?’” Chu said.
“That’s not what a councillor does. What a councillor does is help people like me dim the f—ing lights, instead of dining under interrogation lights.”
Gannon said he did help her with the lights last year, but the lighting technology used on Roslyn Street required the attention of contractors for adjustment. (When a business owner suggested Chu seek Gannon’s help with another feud last year, Chu said: “I’ve got this. I don’t need a man to rescue me.” )
Last month, Chu launched a petition describing recent changes to the lights as “excessively bright at night”, at the expense of the street’s character. She wants council to dim lighting levels from 6pm onward, and introduce warmer-toned lighting appropriate for a hospitality precinct.
In a lengthy statement, a City of Sydney spokeswoman said the petition had not been formally presented to the council. She also said the council adjusted the lights to the lowest level it could while remaining compliant with “national standards”.
Any lower, the spokeswoman said, and the council would be in breach of its public safety obligations, but council is looking into making the light warmer. The council confirmed it had advised Chu she will be charged for a $7000 cleaning bill after she painted the lights, but they have not referred the matter to police.
“Given our obligations to maintain the lighting at the minimum Australian Standard, we will restore it. The damage caused will cost more than an estimated $7000 to restore, which is a cost that should not be borne by City of Sydney ratepayers,” the council spokeswoman told CBD.
“We have advised Ms Chu that we will issue her an invoice for these works. We have also advised that any further instances of deliberate damage to council property will be reported to the police.”
When the lights were shut off entirely late last week, Chu couldn’t contain her excitement. She said she wouldn’t know until Wednesday whether the lights would remain off. If they’re still off, she said, “fantastic”. But time will tell how long the ceasefire holds.
“How many dimwits does it take to change a lightbulb? None – just let the bitch cook in the dark,” Chu said.
Afterpay shells out millions for naming rights
It was only in March this year that Afterpay co-founder Nick Molnar came out to defend a decision by the buy-now-pay-later company’s corporate parent, Block, to swing the axe on 4000 jobs amid the rise of artificial intelligence.
In an interview with this masthead at the time, Molnar insisted the decision was made from a position of strength.
Well, now we have a better idea of what the company is doing with some of those savings. Afterpay has struck a multimillion-dollar deal to snare naming rights to the Sydney Olympic Park venue currently known as Qudos Bank Arena until 2031. In coming months, the venue will get a facelift and a new name: Afterpay Arena.
The deal is expected to cost the company somewhere between $10 million and $20 million over that five-year period, based on one industry estimate. And naturally, concertgoers will get the opportunity to break up their ticket purchases into four, recession-friendly payments.
“Live experiences are one of the more meaningful ways people choose to spend their time. We wanted to be the brand that makes sure nothing gets in the way of that,” Molnar said in a statement.
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John Buckley is a CBD columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via email.