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THE TWEED SHIRE
Show
Volume 1 #10 Thursday, October 30, 2008 Advertising and news enquiries: Phone: (02) 6672 2280 Fax: (02) 6672 4933 editor@tweedecho.com.au adcopy@tweedecho.com.au www.tweedecho.com.au
FRIDAY 31ST OCTOBER & SATURDAY 1ST NOVEMBER
Pages 14 - 15
LOCAL & INDEPENDENT
Shire’s retail strategy challenged Ken Sapwell
Retired animal trainer Charles Knie braves the parrot enclosure at the Crystal Creek Parrot Garden Cafe and Animal Park.
Family swaps circus life for cafe Luis Feliu
The old framed photos and art posters around the Crystal Creek’s Parrott Garden Cafe and Animal Park say it all – life for the Knie family running the small tourist attraction was, at one stage, one big circus. But the exciting life travelling around Europe with a family circus was traded in two years ago when Charles Knie, his wife Doriana and their two children Clinton, 25, and Deborah, 15, packed up and migrated to Australia where they bought a fruit and vegetable store at Crystal Creek and converted into the animal park. ‘I was born into circus life – I was the sixth generation of my family involved in the circus and my wife was the seventh-generation of her family running a circus in Italy but her cousin has children so there are eight generations of Knies still involved in the circus,’ Charles said.
Charles, 61, grew up with the Swiss National Circus Knie where he worked from an early age caring for animals and soon became one of the most renowned animal trainers of his time. His ancestor Friedrich Knie started the famous and successful circus in 1784 which is still pulling huge crowds. Before starting their new life, Charles and his family ran their own circus called Zirkus Charles Knie in Europe with the performing animal attractions including rhinos, hippos, buffalos, zebras, ostriches, even the odd big red or grey kangaroo. Doriana used to perform with range of exotic parrots. ‘We used to come to Byron Bay for family holidays during winter time in Europe when our circus had a few weeks off, and on one holiday two years ago we hired a car and drove around this area seeing Uki, Murwil-
lumbah and the valley, and fell in love with it,’ he said. ‘We returned home and browsed through the internet looking for a business we could buy and saw the fruit and vegetable store which we thought maybe we could make something out of it so we bought it. But we still had to run our circus before the new season and so we returned to Switzerland and sold it. Now we’re in Crystal Creek. ‘Because we were always around animals and grew up with them we thought it would be nice to have a little animal park here and now we’re growing and hope to have more exotic animals in future.’ The park has a large aviary for exotic and native parrots as well as enclosures with llamas, alpacas, rabbits, goats and ponies. Charles learnt the art of animal training and performing from his continued on page 2
A court battle whose outcome will decide the shopping habits of people living on the southern Tweed coast and parts of Byron Shire began in a tent on an open paddock at Pottsville this week. The makeshift courtroom was erected on a grassed four-hectare site on the fast-growing Seabreeze estate where developer Metricon, in a joint venture with Peninsula Developments, wants to build a major shopping centre to rival the two retail centres in Tweed Heads. Amid loud blasts from nearby heavy machinery clearing soil for more housing blocks on the estate, the Land and Environment Court’s chief commissioner, John Roseth, sat in a plastic chair at a trestle table to hear what some of the residents had to say. The dozen-odd witnesses to give unsworn evidence opened a mixedbag of strong emotions, either arguing passionately for or against the proposed development which the Council says will amount to a regional shopping centre. The high-stakes showdown involving barristers on both sides will decide whether the Council’s adopted retail strategy, which seeks to retain Tweed Heads as the shire’s only regional shopping destination, stands or falls.
The Council is arguing that the centre, comprising a 3250sqm supermarket, 1500sqm of speciality shops, a day-care centre and service station with room to expand to a town centre double the size, is over-the-top and threatens to wreck the viability of the existing village’s commercial centre. The Melbourne-based developer, which originally planned to build a small neighbourhood-style centre on its site, believes a much bigger complex is now needed to service the population growth in Pottsville and surrounding areas. Retired radio personality Bob Small was the first to step forward to express his views, saying he hoped it would go ahead because it would create local jobs for himself and his son-in-law who now works on the Gold Coast. Estate resident Irene Lewis told the commissioner that she was forced to make the 60-minute round trip to Tweed Heads each week to do her shopping and socialise with friends but would much prefer to have the choice of a major centre on her doorstep. Several other residents, who admitted being contacted by Metricon’s marketing team, also spoke of the hope that a major centre would result in more competition leading to lower prices and more job prospects. But other residents, who confirmed they had been contacted by Council continued on page 2
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