Owners of trendy Wollongong bar Yours and Owls have painted over a controversial artwork on the side of their Kembla St building, avoiding a hefty $1100 bill from the landlord.
The graffiti-style mural was painted on the grey wall in November last year without consent from the site’s owners, Sargents Charitable Foundation, the altruistic arm of Sargents Pies.
Bar owners Ben Tillman, Adam Smith and Balunn Jones have repeatedly asked their landlord for permission to replace the mural with three interchangeable panels, however they said they had not received a response to the requests, and had only been told to return the wall to its original colour.
The situation came to a head last week when Mr Tillman and Mr Jones were told to repaint it themselves or cop a $1100 bill for a contractor to do it instead.
Unsurprisingly, they chose the former.
They spent just $50 on paint and brushes and completed the job in a matter of hours.
Mr Tillman yesterday said he was disappointed to have to paint over the mural, but said he would continue to fight to get local artwork in the CBD.
‘‘It’s drawn attention to how boring the CBD is without it,’’ he said.
‘‘We actually thought with all the support [for the mural], it may have swayed the decision of the owner, but obviously not.’’
The mural attracted more than 2700 Facebook ‘‘likes’’ on a proposal to make the wall a public exhibition space.
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