A RESTAURANT owner says parking restrictions have “killed” his business, which will close its doors for the last time on Christmas Eve.

Steven Patruno, owner of Essendon’s Brickmakers Arms restaurant, said he made the “upsetting” decision to close the business because customers stopped coming after Moonee Valley Council brought in one-hour parking restrictions on Brewster St in December last year.

Mr Patruno said he welcomed the council’s decision to change restrictions to two-hour parking in October but it was “too little too late”.

“It’s killed the business. It’s totally killed it. I can’t afford to keep trading every week,” Mr Patruno said.

“For 10 months we’ve not been able to have customers park in the area.”

Mr Patruno said he had injected $1.4 million into the business, which opened two years ago after the former hotel site was redeveloped with multi-storey apartments.

“To get no return from it, things have got to go and things have to change,” he said.

Mr Patruno said he had to sell his house and Friends of Ours cafe to keep the restaurant afloat this year.

“People don’t realise how much damage they can do on other people’s business over silly things like parking,” he said.

“We wouldn’t have this problem if the council had even spoken to us about it or said anything in the first place.”

Mr Patruno said about 20 staff members were due to lose their jobs, while he was assessing his own options.

Mayor Andrea Surace said she was sorry to hear about the closure of the business.

Cr Surace said the council undertook extensive parking studies and community consultation, including input from affected local businesses, before bringing in the restrictions.

“There are frequently competing interests between the needs of residents, visitors and businesses for parking which council must try and strike the right balance between to ensure our increasingly limited road space for parking is allocated as fairly as possible,” Cr Surace said.

Source: Moonee Valley Leader, Linh Ly, 23^rd November 2015
Originally published as: Essendon’s Brickmakers Arms restaurant forced to close after Moonee Valley Council decision to install one-hour parking restrictions