Dog friendly cafe in Perth opens after years of red tape

It has taken two and a half years for one Perth cafe owner to get her dog friendly café approved by council.

FurBaby Boutique and Cafe owner Shari Lovreta said she has battled bureaucratic red tape since coming up with the idea of a dog friendly venue seven years ago.

“I wanted to go somewhere to build a fur community,” she told the Stirling Times. “Internationally dogs are taken everywhere. There’s not the red tape we have in Australia.”

Several councils rejected Lovreta’s proposal before she was met with support from the City of Stirling to take over a vacant site in Westminster. But it still took two years for her to open FurBaby in 2014 and another two-and-a-half years to be able to allow customers to sit and eat inside with their dogs.

“You have to be prepared to fight the fight,” she said. “If you think it’s going to be easy, it’s not. But it’s worth it.”

She called on local government decision makers to have more “open dialogue” with business owners.

Sheridan Randall - 22-08-19