• Pakenham News

By Melissa Meehan

19th November 2009 02:05:28 AM

The official launch of the Bunnings Pakenham store was a success.

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“THE BEST team ever.”

That’s how an excited store manager described her staff at the launch of Bunnings Warehouse’s Pakenham store last week.

Complex manager Claire Lee along with football legend David Parkin officially opened the store on Thursday and said she was looking forward to working with her new team and couldn’t ask for anything better.

“Our team members have worked extremely hard to prepare the store for the opening and we are looking forward to helping the community,” she said.

Mr Parkin spoke of the importance of teamwork. He said the Bunnings team needed to work as one towards the same goals, rather than as 50 separate people.

He was presented with his very own Bunnings toolbox and a gift card with his own face on the card before unveiling a plaque with his name on it.

“I feel very honoured to have my name on the plaque,” he said.

“I’ll definitely be driving the hour and a bit from Hawthorn to Pakenham to get my tools.”

Surrounded by the fanfare of opening week, Bunnings Pakenham has come under fire from shoppers who say the store is not properly storing their aerosol spray cans.

One shopper said he was disappointed the retail giant did not store the aerosol cans, the tool of choice for graffiti vandals, in cages.

“All paint retailers in Cardinia Council must comply with these laws yet the big national hardware chain doesn’t,” he said.

“This is the big guys pushing the council around and I won’t stand for it.”

Cardinia Shire Council local-laws manager Alan Giachin said the council passed a local law in January that restricted the sale of spray paint to people under the age of 18 and required retailers to store and display stock ‘away from direct customer access’.

“Retailers have accepted the changes and many have gone out of their way to ensure cans can still be seen by customers but are locked away to prevent minors taking them off the shelves,” Mr Giachin said.

Council local-law 45B states that any person who offers for sale aerosol paint must not ‘store on display, cause to be stored or displayed, or allow to be stored or displayed any aerosol spray paint container in an area which is accessible to the public.’

Despite some retailers choosing to cage their aerosol products, cages are not mentioned in the law.

A Bunnings spokeswoman said the retailer did not believe that the caging of spray paint addressed the ‘real issue’ of chroming and graffiti.

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