Downfall of the Dainty Dairy

For a brief moment, Moreen Hall was a media star. She was the Dunedin dairy owner who refused to sell cigarettes. But that decision proved to be just one more nail in the coffin of Dunedin's Dainty Dairy. Mark Price chronicles the downfall of a Dunedin institution.

• Land, lots of it

When Moreen Hall took cigarettes off the shelf at the Dainty Dairy in 2007 the no-smoking brigade gathered round to congratulate her.

Smokefree Coalition director Mark Peck called for celebrations. The Asthma and Respiratory Foundation presented her with an award.

Public Health South said she "set an example" for other retailers. A Balclutha resident wrote to the Otago Daily Times saying Mrs Hall deserved three cheers. And they all hoped the "smokefree networks" of Dunedin would support her.

Three years later, in September last year, Mrs Hall walked out of the dairy with nothing. She is now on a sickness benefit.

Eighty hours a week selling soft drinks, lollies and chips to school children was nowhere near enough to keep her business afloat.

And living over the shop, in a damp and mouldy flat was no way to maintain her good health.

Mrs Hall's three-year tenure was the Dainty Dairy's last. She advertised the business for sale but there were no takers.

The dairy's closure went virtually unremarked for six months until former customers were alerted in March by news the 100-year-old building was under threat of demolition - although, as yet, the council has received no application for a resource consent to demolish.

Mrs Hall's saga of misadventure began with the dream of a top-class education for her two children.

Born in Fiji, she married an Australian, William Hall, who had a job on the Snowy River hydro-electric system.

They had two children - Thomas (23) and Christine (21) - and bought a house in a small town near where Mr Hall worked and where other members of his family farmed.

But then came drought, forcing the farms to be sold and devaluing houses, such as theirs, in remote country towns.

Mr Hall died. Mrs Hall believes the stress of their deteriorating financial situation was the cause.

With her two children, Mrs Hall moved to Auckland where she lived with her brother and cared for him until he also died.

The move to Dunedin in 2006 followed and was simply a means of enabling Thomas and Christine to study at the University of Otago - just as Mrs Hall and her husband had talked about.

Thomas is studying dentistry and Christine pharmacy. Mrs Hall said they were both in their second year and doing well. She believed the Dunedin climate suited academic study while the heat of Australia was a distraction.

But, for Mrs Hall, the dairy business that was meant to support them brought nothing but trouble.

"This shop gave me hard times," Mrs Hall told the ODT in fluent but heavily accented English earlier this month.

Prior to buying the dairy in December 2006, Mrs Hall flew to Dunedin and spent half an hour looking it over.

Within hours she had paid $23,500 to the previous operator, Rayelyn Hodge, for the lease and the stock, and committed herself to paying a monthly rental of $1500 to building owner and landlord Lincoln Darling.

As well, she was responsible for insurance, rates and electricity.

But she had $60,000 in the bank, a new business and a place for her children to live while they studied. And, despite her Fijian upbringing, she even liked the Dunedin climate.

She bought stock from her savings, repaired the floor from her savings and also began paying the rent from her savings.

And then she put the Dainty Dairy on the non-smoking map by deciding not to sell cigarettes.

"The students are asking cigarettes and I didn't want to sell them.

"Why I will poison those children.