Victoria Police have warned they will crack down hard on Jim’s Mowing after its founder offered to pay any fines attracted by his franchisees caught breaching Stage-4 COVID-19 restrictions.
It remains business as usual for the lawn mowing and gardening service, despite Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews previously saying “there will be no cleaners, there will be no mowing your lawns”.
In fact, demand for its services is so high that they’re signing up double the number of franchisees from the same time last year, Jim’s Mowing founder Jim Penman said.
“We’ve got so much work and people need jobs,” he said.
“It’s been a terrible crisis for the country and I really feel for people who have been hurt, but for Jim’s Group it’s been absolutely amazing,”
Victoria Police Commissioner Shane Patton said it was “disappointing to hear someone saying they’re going to deliberately flaunt the directions”.
“We’ll deal with every incident on a case-by-case basis when we become alerted to it through the police assistance line,” he told ABC News Breakfast.
“We get lots of reports of breaches in terms of mass gatherings, personal breaches. But … if that was to occur, we will take the enforcement action the public would expect us.”
But Mr Penman said he was not flouting the new lockdown rules which were announced on Monday afternoon.
He said the rules on what businesses can stay open did apply to household and ground maintenance and that his workers were essential to keep up the health and safety for Victorians stuck at home.
“I would totally agree with the Police Commissioner, that nobody should flout the rules,” he said.
Mr Penman said he was following the advice from the Department of Health and Human Services and slammed Mr Andrews for apparently “saying something which is against the advice of his own department”.
“There’s nothing that’s really more safe than going out and mowing lawns, for example, because you don’t have contact with the public; we have electronic payments, you’re not seeing people, you’re not with people, you’re not near people,” he said.
“Our people travel by car from one job to another. There’s no reason for them to come within 10 metres of any member of the public in what they’re doing. So there’s no lack of safety.”
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