By Dongyun Kwon
The recent storm affected businesses in Healesville although they were prepared for it.
Healesville’s Monroe’s Burger and Beers found the impact of the storm even harsher when they found out someone deliberately turned off their generator right before they reopened the shop on Thursday 15 February.
Manager Conner Eaton said the team was frustrated and upset.
“As far as we can tell, someone either decided to be a funny joke or got annoyed at the noise or something,” he said.
“Somewhere between two o’clock in the morning and six o’clock in the morning yesterday [Thursday 15 February], someone turned it off which obviously caused all of our fridges to go well over temp causing everything in there to go off.
“We live in a fairly small town and it’s tough to think that someone from the area would do something like that to a small business,” he said.
The shop had to be closed when the storm came about 2.30pm on Tuesday 13 February and it was reopened on Friday 16 February.
“We lost Tuesday night, Wednesday and Thursday sales and we’ve also lost over $3000 worth of stock due to the storm and the generator issue,” Mr Eaton said.
“If that [the generator issue] didn’t happen, we would have been able to open up yesterday [Thursday] afternoon.
“We had the big job yesterday of trying to clear everything out of our fridges and trying to deal with all the stock that had gone bad.”
The Monroe’s Burger and Beers team received huge support from the community on social media.
“The support we’ve seen come through messages is quite heart-warming for us,” Mr Eaton said.
The team is asking the locals to help them to find out the offender.
Anyone who witnessed it is welcome to contact the Monroe’s Burger and Beers team at info@monroesburgers.com
Healesville police spokesperson said the incident has been reported and the investigation is ongoing.
Toscano’s Yarra Valley in Healesville relatively well dealt with the storm and the power outages reflecting the lessons from the 2021 storm.
Toscano’s Yarra Valley owner Frank Toscano said he was better prepared this time.
“We had everything pre-organised to make disruption minimal whereas in 2021 I don’t think anyone was prepared,” he said
“I was here till midnight on Tuesday and I took all the stock out while it was still cold and transferred them to another fridge, that I have at the other end of the town, by a refrigerated van.
“It was a lot of work and we saved a lot of stuff.”
A generator arrived at the shop around 3pm on Wednesday 14 February, two hours later than the estimated time and Mr Toscano could reopen the shop after he successfully set up the generator.
“We closed from about 2.30pm Tuesday and reopened around 4pm on Wednesday.
“I was up all night looking for a generator and we found one in Dandenong and they were able to deliver it but it was larger than we needed, so we shared it with the Bucher next door [Mainstreet Quality Butchers and Smoke House].”
