A café owner has been forced to shut her business after her neighbour complained about clinking teacups and a particular smell.
Emma Ayles, 47, operated the Caddy Shack Eatery out of a shipping container in the car park of Weymouth and Portland Rugby Club after her husband Jon, 50, completed its construction in April 2022.
She ran the tiny eatery – which proved a hit with locals – for more than a year, with the help of her eight staff.
But it was forced to shut last week after Ms Ayles received three complaints – just one of which called for the café to close.
Speaking to the SWNS news agency, she said a neighbour’s complaint that he “can’t hang his washing up because of the bacon smell and is disturbed by the sound of teaspoons stirring in cups” caused a domino effect that ended her little business.
She said: “One person complained he can’t hang his washing up because of the bacon smell and is disturbed by the sound of teaspoons stirring in cups.
“He also said people urinate against his fence – I doubt that, I serve 60-year-old grannies!”
Ms Ayles first set up the Caddy Shack with the landowner’s permission, but the complaints forced her to apply for retrospective planning permission, which officials ultimately rejected.
She was forced to lay off her eight employees before she found herself out of a job last week, leaving her confused and shocked.
She explained: “Someone came down from South West Planning to assess us in October and in the report they said they’re closing us down due to presumed noise in the summer months.
“How can someone presume that? Where Caddy Shack is and the seating area, there’s wasteland and the road and then some wasteland again, so it’s not even properly next-door to anyone – the closest house is about 24m away.
“I’d understand if we had screaming kids and dogs but we don’t – I have a lot of recently widowed customers. It’s been brilliant for the local 50-plus community- they get out of their house and I get a lot of disabled people on mobility scooters.”
“There’s a special needs school, Wyvern Academy, who use me once a week. They take a lot of time so they don’t feel welcome anywhere else. We installed a double-glazed window and bamboo to help with the so-called noise and any privacy issues. And in the winter we usually don’t even open.”
The council rejected the businesswoman’s application in February 2023 on the grounds that the Caddy Shack did not provide access to toilets.
Ms Ayles informed the council that this was not the case and that customers are allowed to use the toilets in the rugby club, but she was told she would have to appeal.
She said she is locked in discussions with the council to bring the café back but that it could cost “thousands” to reintroduce the business.
She added: “I can’t wait another 18 months and go without trading. Luckily, my husband has kept his job – he’s a HTV mechanic – but he had been thinking about joining me full-time.
“Apart from this one man who is complaining about the smell and noise the other two complainants had just wanted us to to turn to face the rugby club and not the footpath – they said they don’t want me going out of business.”
Ms Ayles is receiving help from the rugby club as they try to coordinate their next steps and has started a petition to save the Caddy Shack which has received 2,730 signatures. https://www.change.org/p/save-our-beloved-caddy-shack-in-weymouth
