Latest / 360 with Katie Woolf / Sand Palms Roadhouse and Motel owner Tommy Abdoo says he’s been asked by the NT Government to take down his business signs which have been up for about 20 years

Transcript

Sand Palms Roadhouse and Motel owner Tommy Abdoo says he’s been asked by the NT Government to take down his business signs which have been up for about 20 years · 360 with Katie Woolf

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure whether you've seen this vision.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: Well, it's gone viral over the course of the weekend
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: or about twenty thousand people. I reckon I've watched this
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: vision of Tommy from the Sam Palms.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Now, plenty of you all know Tommy.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: He was a very dear friend of the late great
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Pete Davies who used to do this show, and any
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: friends of Pete's is obviously a friend of mine.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: But Tommy's a wonderful bloke.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: He and Julie run the Sam Palms and it is
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: a much loved territory business.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: And after well you know what he.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Thinks is probably about twenty years, they're being forced to
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: take down their signs that sit along the highway, basically
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: telling people you know that the Sam Palms is two
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: kilometers away. It seems like it's bureaucracy gone mad. But
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: joining me on the line right now is Tommy out
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  Speaker 2: there at the Sam Palms.
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  Speaker 1: Get a Tommy.
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: There you going, Katie.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: I'm not too I'm not too bad, mate. I'll tell
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: you what I saw that vision over the weekend. I
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: must have had it sent to me as well by
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: about ten people. Everybody is utterly fired up that you've
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: had to take your signs down.
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: Well, I didn't have to take them down, Katie, but
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  Speaker 3: if I didn't, i'd lose them because the relevant department
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: was going to take them down and just scrap them.
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: And I just thought, well, I paid for them. I'll
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: keep them so I can hang them on the fence
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: here at the pub and change them from five kilometers
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: to fifty meters or something like that. You can, you know,
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: I'll come up with something productive with it.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: From five o' clots to fifty meters.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: Now I'm laughing because it just seems unbelievable. Why on
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: earth do these signs if you didn't take them down,
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: why on earth does the department need to take them down?
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: Well, apparently they're there, and I saw and a distruction
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: for the motorists. And when they come and sat in
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: the restaurant with Julia and Iron explained it to us.
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: I said, well, what about the eleven million dollars worth
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: of massive signs that you've got parked around town with
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  Speaker 3: zero consultation to the taxpayer. What about those? And I
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: think those are fairly distracting compared to these little signs
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  Speaker 3: on the side of the road.
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  Speaker 2: You sport on and what did they have to say
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  Speaker 2: to that.
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  Speaker 3: They're not authorized to say anything. They've just got their jobs,
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  Speaker 3: come and tell us to get our signs out or
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  Speaker 3: they're taking them. So I can understand that, you know,
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: you need one man per job. But Tommy, yeah, it's
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: a bit annoying because it's not a distraction, Katie. We've
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: had people even when Julie and I bought land out
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  Speaker 3: here six years before we bought the pub, it was
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: like the kids used to love the countdown nearly there,
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: right there, yet yet nearly there, and it was like,
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: that's just how everybody does it, and the amount of
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  Speaker 3: I didn't think i'd get that kind of hits on Facebook,
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: but here when apeshit.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: It's gone viral.
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  Speaker 2: Mates, you've gone everybody's seen you over the course of
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: the weekend. But I think it's hit a nerve because,
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: you know, like it actually said in that video, you know,
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: never mind the crime, never mind the other stuff that's
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: going on. You know, the real issue in the Northern
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: Territory is these signs and that's.
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: Just breaks of smoke and mirrors. Katie's we need to
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: distract from the issues here, and I think it's the
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  Speaker 3: signs it's blocking up the scenery.
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  Speaker 2: It's just unbelievable. Those signs have been up for years
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: and years. You know, everybody that goes out to that
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: area then knows exactly where the sam palms are.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: If you're a towny like me, you actually need those signs.
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: Well, that's what I think. And they want uniformity across
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  Speaker 3: the whole tourism industry. So all the signage is the same,
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  Speaker 3: but four blue squares and a tent in one and
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  Speaker 3: a knife and fork in another, and a feel boughs
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  Speaker 3: and nozzle and the other doesn't really say what we do.
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  Speaker 3: We supply a lot more things than just what you
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  Speaker 3: can put on a little sign. And yeah, yeah, just
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  Speaker 3: it's irrelevant for me. It's just irrelevant. Why they want
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  Speaker 3: to do it is beyond me. It's not effecting anything.
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  Speaker 3: I think it was triggered in this buy all of
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  Speaker 3: the roadside signs that cool the linger, but I don't
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  Speaker 3: think you're comparing apples to apples in this case. It's crazy.
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  Speaker 1: It is absolutely crazy.
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  Speaker 2: Now for those that aren't aware where exactly were the signs.
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: Well, the first one, the five kilometers sign, was at
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  Speaker 3: about one hundred meters prior to the Crabclaw Island turnoff.
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  Speaker 3: They've got to get rid of theirs, as well as
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: the Dundee, and as the two j's, and as does
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: everybody for Cops Peninsular raid out. But anyway, their first one,
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  Speaker 3: the five K sign is there just before the Crabclaw
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  Speaker 3: Island turn off, and then the four is a K closer,
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  Speaker 3: and the three and so on and so on, and
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  Speaker 3: each different sign just put on a couple of the
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: services we provided so we could sort of spread it out.
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  Speaker 3: It's a bit like the World's Fastest Indian where they
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: were counting down the Burmer shade. You see that.
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  Speaker 1: No, it didn't.
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  Speaker 3: Need to watch Betters the Great Meat.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: Tommy tell me, like, in all seriousness, how much of
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  Speaker 2: a blow is this for the business?
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  Speaker 3: Well, I won't know until we get into the full
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: leg of the dry season, Katie, because we do get
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: a fairly good following in the drive. But to be honest,
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: it's been This is the slowest I've seen kickstart in
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: the years we've been here, and I figure a lot
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  Speaker 3: of it's to do with the crime. I've been speaking
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: to me bookkeeper. She's down south, and the topic they're
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: worried about is people going to the territory are going
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  Speaker 3: to get bashed, robbed, or the car's broken into, etc.
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  Speaker 3: And this is not a good advertising policy for tourism.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: No, it's truly not.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, like honestly, Like I said before, I think
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  Speaker 2: the reason why the video that you posted hit a
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: nerve with so many people over the weekend is because
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: we're all fed up with the garbage that we're dealing
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: with at the moment. And then, you know, for something
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  Speaker 2: like this to happen to a business owner where it
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: might seem like to a department it doesn't have a
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: big deal or it's not you know, it's not a
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: big change. But I just think, why are we in
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: a situation then where we're focusing on bloody signs and
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: not focusing on the real issues that we've.
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: Got smoking mirrors, Katie. That's all I can say. But
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: it's actually been going on for a while. But I
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: couldn't agree more. I think there are far more important
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: things to be addressed than roadside signage. I think if
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: we never address that, there's always going to be something
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: more important than roadside. I don't know the answer. I
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: don't know why I'm frustrated by it. Because it's unnecessary. Yeah,
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: and like I say, I don't know how much business
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: will miss from it because of people driving on by
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  Speaker 3: at least when we had a countdown that people knew
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: where we were. Yeah, say they won't. The replacement signed
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  Speaker 3: the guys put in is behind another one that says
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: by now Haven Road Batroun And you can't even read.
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: All you can see is stands. So maybe that's relevant
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: in itself. They've got their head in the sand. I'm
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: not sure.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: Maybe we need one of those eleven million dollar signs.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: Out there New York place.
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  Speaker 3: That'd be cool.
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  Speaker 2: I tell you what this is where it's just fascical,
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  Speaker 2: isn't it. You know you look at those signs.
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: The problem is the crime, and that's that's for sure. Look,
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: I was having a little read this morning, kat, I
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  Speaker 3: just want to share this with you and your listeners.
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  Speaker 3: Publius Cyrus was a Latin writer born eighty five years
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: before Christ, and he had a few little moral sayings.
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: I'll just give you a couple of them. He who
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  Speaker 3: spares the good, he who spares the bad injures the good.
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  Speaker 3: He who helps the guilty shares the crime. The judge
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  Speaker 3: is condemned when the guilty is absolved, pardon one offense,
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  Speaker 3: and you encourage the commission of many. Now I'm not
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  Speaker 3: sure if he was related to Charles Darwin, but it
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  Speaker 3: certainly sounds like.
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  Speaker 1: Mate.
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  Speaker 2: Honestly, those like those words you just go isn't like
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  Speaker 2: isn't that true for the two territory?
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: Right now?
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  Speaker 2: You just think to yourself, we are we're pardoning these offenses,
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: and we're sort of, you know, turning a blind eye
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  Speaker 2: to the really serious stuff that's going on, and all
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: the while everybody else is suffering.
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: Yep, you know, did you get an invite to any
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: publicity weddings, any celebrity weddings every weekend?
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: No? No, I don't get invited to much anymore. Tommy.
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: I saw you speak on Skylight, proud of you.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: Oh thanks mate, thank you, And like I think we
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: just fed up, hey, And that's how I feel. I
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: know you guys have lived here for such a long time.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: I've been here for twenty odd years. Like I just
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: we all want this place to thrive. We love the
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: Northern Territory, that's why.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: We live here. And we're hurting right now. We need some.
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  Speaker 3: Help, we do. Someone's got to make the hard decisions.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they truly do, Tommy.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: I always appreciate your time and the more you know
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: when we chat, I just think, why don't we.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: Do this more often? So we're going to have to
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: catch up with you more often.
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: Just give us a call when you don't want any
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: political correctness.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: I will do. Good on you, Tommy mate, Thank you
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: so much.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: Say gooday to Julie for me, and and we'll talk
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: to you again soon.
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: Okay, Thanksaie, thank you.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: See