Replies to post #41994 on Empire Energy Corporation Intl. (fka EEGC)

[oilsleuth]

Subsequent article:


April 24, 2016 12:00am
MATT SMITH Mercury

FORMER strip club owner Peter Johnson is embarking on a new pub deal with one of Hobart’s best-known pastors.

Mr Johnson, who owned the Men’s Gallery strip club in Hobart until about three months ago, has applied for a liquor licence for the Bronte Park Village Pub.

The Central Highlands pub is owned by Lucas Jacometti who founded the C3 church at South Hobart after a ­“vision from God” told him he would move from NSW to Tasmania and open a church.

Mr Johnson is understood to have sold the Men’s Gallery earlier this year.

In a handwritten submission to the Liquor and Gaming Commission, Mr Johnson said he was applying for a licence for the Bronte Park Village Pub, and declared his 20 years of experience in the industry.

“Bronte Park Village serv­ices the needs of the whole community on the ­Central Highlands relating to ­hospitality, accommodation, dining, children’s play area, caravan park and general sales,” he said.

The new venture will be a different style of pub compared with the Men’s Gallery, the first strip club in Tasmania.

The Bronte Park Village Pub has been on the market since January, with locals ­raising concerns for months about its potential closure.

Mr Jacometti told the ­Sunday Tasmanian in January the pub, which he bought with the hope it would be a hub for oil workers, was on the market.

His comments came after the Sunday Tasmanian dis­covered Mr Jacometti had emerged as a driving force ­behind a renewed bid to turn Tasmania’s Central Highlands into an oil reserve the equivalent of a “rich Arab state”.

The Sunday Tasmanian highlighted links between Mr Jacometti and wannabe oil ­tycoon Malcolm Bendall.

Mr Jacometti was ­approached by the Sunday Tasmanian after a then 99-year-old Hobart man claimed he had lost $280,000 in savings after investing in Mr Bendall’s vision.

Don Garnham, who has since died, was hoping Mr ­Jacometti and Mr Bendall’s ­renewed push for oil and gas exploration would see him get some return on his investment.

His family is pursuing the issue and looking at legal ­avenues.

An exploration licence for the area, advertised by Mineral Resources Tasmania, has not been issued.

The Sunday Tasmanian ­tried to contact Mr Johnson and Mr Jacometti.