The owner of the pizza bar at the centre of SA’s snap lockdown last year says the ordeal was like “going through hell” as he tries to revive the business and restore his reputation.
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FIVEAA Breakfast’s David Penberthy revealed during Monday’s Breaking @ 8 segment:
“Australia’s most notorious pizza bar is back in businesses and the two men who became public hate figures are quietly rebuilding their lives after being blamed for plunging 2 million South Australians into lockdown…
“The investigation was closed in December with no criminality found and no charges brought against its staff. We can now reveal that the owner of the pizza bar is a decent and law-abiding young married father who is a Persian man, he emigrated from Iran some years ago. He has no criminal record. He’d been running the business for six years and he is now trying to revive it after very nearly being ruined by rumour…
“When I spoke to him he said this: ‘It was like going through hell. My wife and I found it extremely hard… we just want to pretend it never happened. We’re just trying to make an honest living and make our customers happy. The stories people said about us were terrible. I’ve never been in trouble for anything, never been charged with anything, I haven’t even had a speeding fine.’
“The treatment of this bloke – we all played our part in this,” Penbo said, “and I include the media in that… it’s a disturbing example of how in the digital age people can be hung drawn and quartered in the court of public opinion and it starts online with these baseless claims circulating. The rumours then spill into mainstream media coverage and they also pile pressure on police.”
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