AFTER 100 years of wetting the whistles of tourists, miners, station hands and locals, the Kalkadoon pub (affectionately known to North West Queenslanders simply as the Kajabbi pub) has called for final drinks.
Barman Pat Davis, pictured, who had worked at the hotel on and off since 1974, said a combination of “bureaucracy gone made” and the recent wet season had delivered the fatal blow to the establishment.
The road to Kajabbi suffered heavy damage during the floods.
Even today, months after the flood waters have receded, the town can still only be reached by 4WD. And it was the roads that nailed the final coffin in the old pub.
Mr Davis said he was required to take a two-day pub management course in Mount Isa before the end of January in order to remain in compliance with the liquor act.
However, he said the cut off roads made it impossible to travel to Mount Isa and, unable to complete the course via correspondence, he could not meet the January deadline.
A few weeks later, fearing breach notices and fines from liquor licensing officers, the Gladstone based pub owner decided to close the doors.
The pub called for final drinks on April fools day. Mr Davis said the Kajabbi pub had faced great financial difficulty making the repairs necessary to keep the building compliant with the various hotel and health standards.
“You were always looking around your shoulder,” he said.
“Every time we see little Hitlers in khaki coming down the road towards the pub you’d think you’re going to cop a fine for something.”
Mr Davis said the pub had served as a community centre for the town.
The local volunteer fire brigade (which does not own a truck and instead stores two water carrying trailers at the back of the pub) meets at the bar regularly.
If the Royal Flying Doctor Service needed to land at the Kajabbi airstrip, it was Mr Davis who lit the run way.
“There are people still pissing in the front main street and they’ve been doing it like that since I first came here in 1974,” he said.
“Even just to put a new set of toilets in the pub – imagine what kind of fuss that would be for a 100 year old building. But there were all these rules.”
He said it was “absurd” to expect a small country pub to adhere to “big city rules” such as “painting a line on the pub floor” to separate the smoking and non-smoking areas.
“We only have half a dozen people in the town,” he said.
Mr Davis said he would continue to live in the pub where he would tend to the gardens and operate his restored cars website.
“I never did this job to make money – because I never got any for working here. This whole place was held together for the love of it.”
He said the tiny town would suffer greatly from the loss of the pub.
“People are saying it’s going to kill the town,” he said. “We were a meeting hall for local people.
“They would come to swap their lawnmowers, drink a few beers and tell a few yarns.
“If they’d just left us alone we’d been alright - but they just wouldn’t do it.”
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