University 'two-faced', former cafe owner says

The vacant Cumberland St building known as the Green Acorn, owned by the University of Otago, is to become a cafe once again.

University director of property services, Barry MacKay said in a statement yesterday the university was in negotiations with prospective operators.

The previous lessees of the building and operators of the Green Acorn Cafe, Ivan Brenssell (71) and Angela Burns (53), moved the business to Albany St in October 2008 after a disagreement with the university over the lease.

Ms Burns told the Otago Daily Times yesterday they were not among those in lease negotiations and they were still unhappy at the way they had been treated by the university.

When the cafe opened in 1990, Mr Brenssell was given a long-term lease.

Ms Burns said when it ran out the university reduced the lease to a three-year term and then insisted on a year-by-year lease.

"It means you don't have a good business to sell. No-one will buy a business that has only a year lease."

Ms Burns said they worked 11 hours a day, six days a week to build up the business.

She considered a short-term lease "renders your business sort of valueless" and they had no option but to relocate.

The move to Albany St had lost them "a lot of money".

"We lost our goodwill. That's the point. We've lost 20 years of goodwill and it was inappropriate really that the university should be so two-faced."

Ms Burns said she did not want her comments to sound like sour grapes but the sale value of the business was equivalent to their superannuation fund.

"The sale of the business is your future; and we've lost that. So, basically that's the reason we feel we were treated badly."

They have now put the Green Acorn, in Albany St, on the market.

The university declined to comment yesterday on Ms Burns' criticism.

Mr MacKay said the upstairs student flat would be replaced with office space and the 125-year-old, Robert Lawson-designed building would be renovated in a manner "sympathetic" to its Victorian past.

"The new cafe will be an attractive facility that will enhance the social and cultural environment shared by everyone who uses the campus."