USU Threatens to Evict Cafe Azzuri

Students may soon have to venture off campus for their Nutella crepe fix, with the USU and Wentworth food outlet Azzuri Café set to lock horns over a leasing dispute in the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT). On Monday, Azzuri owner Nick Ana lodged an interim application with NCAT for an urgent hearing. He told Honi that the USU had made a “serious threat” to cancel its lease agreement, accusing the union of using “rough tactics” in its dealings with the café.

Ana told Honi that the USU seems caught up on “a question of semantics”. Not wishing to jeopardise ongoing mediation processes between the parties, he declined to expand on the substance of the dispute, stating only that the union’s shenanigans are something that students ought to know about. Honi can only speculate.

Ana claims that relations between Azzuri and the USU have been vexed since late last year. Nevertheless, he stated that he was surprised the union would consider evicting the café, which has been a tenant for over 15 years.

Azzuri last attracted controversy when in March 2014, the Vietnamese food section was shut down after 21 cases of salmonella poisoning were linked to the cafe’s pork rolls. Since this incident Azzurris has implemented a food safety program that monitors every step of our food preparation processes to
minimise all risks of food contamination.

USU CEO Andrew Woodward declined to comment.