The smell of bacon and sound of teacups clinking has forced a cafe owner to shut her premises after a bizarre neighbour complaint. Emma Ayles, 47, set up Caddy Shack eatery in a shipping container next to a rugby club last year and it became an instant hit in Weymouth, Dorset.
But she’s now been forced to shut the popular cafe at Weymouth and Portland Rugby Club down after her application for retrospective planning permission was rejected by the local council.
Now – just days from Christmas – she’s out of a job and been forced to lay off eight employees, reports MyLondon.
Emma 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! 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 its 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 cafe was built by Emma’s husband, Jon, 50 and opened in April 2022 with the landowner’s permission.
But after three complaints she was told she would have to apply for retrospective planning permission. Now Emma says they’re doing their best to comply so that they can keep the business going.
She said: “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.”
She added: “We don’t think we are going to have any news until the new year- it’s a waiting game.”.
Emma has started a petition to save the Caddy Shack which has 2,730 signatures.
Express.co.uk has approched Dorset Council for comment.
