Aleks Parm, Byron Bay
Regarding objections to KFC: Exactly what are the demagogic objections based on anyway? ‘Tourists come to Byron because those things are not here,’ says one eager opposer, so the tourists and holiday letting are a good thing, as long as it supports an anti-argument!? The mayor bleats KFC have no toilets planned; I doubt that.
Do we aspire to develop a model community and encourage local businesses? In which case, unless we want to be a bunch of hypocritical pietists, we should promote the same set of standards for all businesses throughout Byron Shire. Why sign petitions against KFC and Dan Murphy’s while munching on a foot-long chicken Subway, buying toilet paper from Woolworths and filling our fuel tanks at BP on our way to a local liquor baron’s overpriced booze outlet?
Perhaps the problem is in food quality? Byron Bay already has venues that serve artery-clogging calorie bombs that have not been banned. Or is the concern with animal rights, opposing cruelty to fowl? What then about Sunnyside greeting visitors right on our doorstep? Chicken factories are cruel and disgusting but we don’t have a giant bucket of bloody feathers propped up on Ewingsdale Road in protest. However the resentment over a big bucket of equally disgusting crispy fried chicken is enough to cause a revolt against one multinational company.
In the meantime we are all paying for this blindsided ethical tag game with a constantly distracted community and a council that should instead be focusing on real issues like all the other ugly unregulated signage allowed to run rampant across the streets of Byron or the monumentally ridiculous and wasteful traffic situation.
2 wrongs don’t make a right. If you take the writer’s argument to its logical conclusion we may as well give up all efforts to influence the look and feel of our town and it will end up looking like an extension of the Gold Coast. Those promoting rampant multinational development what nothing more than for people to throw up their arms and give up. Everyone has a right to express their opinion and the writer is ‘bleating’ as much as I am. There is an expression “the straw that broke the camel’s back”. For many, a KFC outlet is something worth opposing. If it comes to town, so be it. Personally I hate their loud red and white buckets hoisted high and in your face with a grinning very dead fat American who didn’t even create the recipe. Go back to Kentucky KFC…Ha!