Peninsula Cafe and Bodhi spa proprietor Danny Taylor blasts Western Power over outages | USAEMALL.com

The owner of a popular Perth cafe has accused Western Power of having “no sense of reality or concern” for small business after a planned weekend power outage, which was then cancelled with 24 hours’ notice, cost him thousands in revenue.

Danny Taylor and his wife Tania own Peninsula Farm Cafe in Maylands, and the Bodhi spas in Perth and Yallingup.

Mr Taylor says both his cafe and the Yallingup spa retreat have been impacted by planned Western Power outages, which required the businesses to either close or offer reduced services. He said in both cases, the outages were then rescheduled.

He has called on the utility to increase its $1000 reimbursement payment for businesses to hire or purchase generators during planned outages.

Mr Taylor said the company gave him two weeks’ notice of a planned outage scheduled for Saturday — the busiest day off the week for the Maylands cafe — July 26.

He said trying to find a generator “to power a whole cafe with ovens, pool rooms, fridges, coffee machines — in addition to lighting and music — was near on impossible”.

He was unsuccessful in an attempt to request the works be carried out on a Monday or Tuesday, when the cafe is closed.

After receiving a quote for almost $7000 for generators to supply the cafe, Mr Taylor decided to operate a takeaway menu only, using a smaller generator, leaving him $1800 out of pocket after the $1000 reimbursement.

All dine-in reservations were cancelled and a web developer and social media creator were then paid to communicate changes to the public.

“We gave 80 per cent of our staff the day off and planned to operate with a skeleton team to keep costs as low as possible, knowing we’d be running at a loss as it was with the generator and other costs,” he said.

“Then, 24 hours before the proposed outage, Western Power advised they’d cancelled the works.”

By this stage Mr Taylor said it was too late to reverse the changes put in place.

“All up, we lost approximately $10,000 in revenue and out-of-pocket expenses, for no reason,” he said.

“What pains us most is Western Power have now advised that they have rescheduled the works for next Friday, 19th September.”

Mr Taylor has opted to cancel all bookings and close the cafe next Friday.

“Operating a portion of our business with generators would result in another financial loss for the day,” he said.

“On a sunny Friday, we would have 22 staff rostered to work, 18 of whom are casuals, and all who will now lose a shift as a result of Western Power’s refusal to look at an alternate week day for us.

“I feel there should be some attention brought to these large corporates who have no sense or reality or concern for small business.”

A Western Power spokeswoman said maintaining and upgrading the network was essential in ensuring the continued delivery of safe, reliable power to residents and businesses and to avoid longer unplanned outages in the future.

“We know planned outages are inconvenient and can impact small businesses, but we assure them that all efforts are taken to minimise the number and duration of any planned outages,” the spokeswoman said.

“When scheduling outages, we take into consideration factors such as the urgency of work for the community, potential impact on homes and businesses, weather and community demand on the network among other things.”