Curry sign fight heats up

KILMORE Kurry Palace is locked in a technical battle with Heritage Victoria over their right to advertise using large signs and lights on their building.

The Indian and Thai food restaurant operates out of the Old Kilmore Post Office building, which is state listed with Heritage Victoria.

This listing has severely restricted the ways in which the owners wished to advertise their business.

Kurry Palace director Vijay Kumar said that during the restaurants first year of business, people did not know their building was a restaurant; all they saw was the old post office.

The owners attempted to rectify the situation by adorning the building with banners and placing rope lights along the skirting.

“This is so commuters can really see and admire a beautiful heritage building as well as a business,” Mr Kumar said.

Mr Kumar said that after the new signs and lights had been put up the change in business was immediate and many new customers arrived at the restaurant.

However, Heritage Victoria contacted the owners of the Kurry Palace and ordered the banners and lights be taken down.

They told Mr Kumar that despite having the consent of their landlord, who did not mention anything about Heritage Victoria, the tenants needed a permit to place the large signs and lights on the property.

Yet when the owners applied for a permit they were refused and are now unsure of where to go from here.

“Heritage Victoria said we should advertise through a different medium, by putting ads in newspapers or distributing flyers, but that is a very expensive thing to do on (a) regular basis,” Mr Kumar said.

He believes that the Mitchell Shire is ‘helpless’ to do anything about the situation, as Heritage Victoria was ‘above them’.

This was confirmed when Council CEO, David Keenan, said the matter had to be resolved with Heritage Victoria alone.

On Friday, a Heritage Victoria spokesperson told The North Central Review that the permit application was only refused because further information was needed for the assessment to proceed.

However, Mr Kumar insists that they are referring to another permit he has lodged for a door and not the signs.

He provided a letter sent to the owners from Heritage Victoria in August that states the owners must remove all unauthorised signage from their building or risk a $520,000 fine.

The tenants have a month to comply with this request and Mr Kumar and his partner Retesh Thukral fear that once they do their building will again be unrecognisable as a restaurant.