By Tate Papworth
Developers have been fined more than half a million dollars for dumping asbestos in Cairnlea following the demolition of a 159-year-old Carlton pub two years ago.
Magistrate Richard Pithouse admonished the developers as he imposed fines of $120,000 each on Raman Shaqiri and Stefce Kutlesovski in the Sunshine Magistrates Court on Wednesday.
He fined their company, 160 Leicester Pty Ltd, a further $300,000.
It is alleged that in October, 2016, the Corkman Irish Pub, built in 1857 on the corner of Leicester and Pelham streets, was demolished without planning or building permission. As well as leaving exposed asbestos amid the rubble on the Carlton site, the developers took bricks, mortar and other building waste – with asbestos in it – to a development site they owned in Cairnlea.
They dumped the waste there, 350 metres from a primary school and a childcare centre and close to a group of townhouses their company had recently finished developing.
Moving the waste from Carlton to Cairnlea occurred after the developers were warned by the EPA, which brought Wednesday’s charges against the men, to secure the Carlton site. The charges against the men related both to dumping waste at Cairnlea and failure to properly secure the Carlton rubble.
Tarpaulins placed over the Carlton rubble and waste were torn, had holes in them and were blowing in the wind. When warned about the tarpaulins, Shaqiri’s response was to “tape them back together”, an EPA prosecution summary said.
The magistrate said he would have jailed the men if that option had been open to him.
“In my view, you put the residents of those areas at substantial risk,” Mr Pithouse said. “If jail were available, I would be imprisoning the accused in relation to these matters. However, I am constrained by the [Environment Protection] Act and I am limited to imposing financial penalties.
“It is my view that both [directors] of this company have acted with complete disregard to the law for their own financial betterment, and that they have a cavalier disregard [for] the law.”
– The Age
