“This drives me mad. We’re not a country buried under thousands of years of historical buildings like when when you go to Europe. So what we do have we should be trying to retain as some kind of character around the joint. This relentless march of anonymous apartments is just insane to me.” These were the words of comedian and radio host Mick Molloy during a recent broadcast of Triple M’s Hot Breakfast.
Molloy was responding the news, announced on Friday evening via Facebook, that the Mentone Hotel, formerly named the Edgewater Hotel and known to locals as The Edgy, would be closing this Thursday, 13th November, with the property’s new owners set to convert the historic 1880s Beach Rd. building into a residential development.
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The news has met opposition from locals and Edgy fans on social media, with the State Government now vowing to try and protect the iconic venue from being turned into apartments. As The Herald Sun reports, yesterday morning Planning Minister Matthew Guy and Sandringham state Liberal MP Murray Thompson visited the Mentone Hotel, with Mr. Guy telling News Limited he and Mr. Thompson would write to Heritage Victoria to seek heritage listing for the hotel in a bid to protect it from development.
“We can’t sit idle and watch this grand old building be turned into apartments,” he said. “It would be a huge loss to the whole bayside area.” He added that the process to have the building heritage listed could take a couple of months, but said development was not imminent. “There have been no permits issued, so people can be assured there is no imminent threat to the building,” said the Planning Minister.
“Any person can request Heritage Victoria to consider a building for protection, and the hope is that heritage listing will protect the structure of the building and the interior, which would mean it could really only continue to be operated as a pub. It’s a bit of shock that a beautiful old building like this is not already heritage listed,” he added.
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Over on social media, locals were incensed. At the time of writing, the Save the Edgy Facebook group has already amassed over 11,000 subscribers. Organisers insist the Edgy is “a historic landmark within the Bayside area and a place which has played a significant part in people’s lives”, directing them to a Change.org petition which is currently just 155 signatures shy of its 5,000-signature goal.
The petition was launched by Sandringham independent candidate Clarke Martin. It calls on the State Government to introduce legislation to protect Victoria’s historic pubs. “We have got to the stage where development is out of control when icons such as the Mentone Hotel are put up for the highest bidder,” he said. “As population increases it is more and more important that we maintain our social infrastructure such as our great historic pubs.”
Mr. Martin has also organised a protest rally to be staged at the Mentone Hotel this Wednesday at 7:30pm, with thousands expected to attend the hotel’s final instalment of their popular Edgy Wednesdays event – considered something of a rite of passage for young Bayside residents. The weekly nightclub and live music event has become staple of the area’s cultural landscape.
