Shouting, belittling staff: The sordid history of a small-town pub

Springfield, the western Canterbury Plains town described as the gateway to the Southern Alps, has plenty going for it. But for a small place, it also seems to have more than its share of discord, or worse, raising the question: Is it actually the angriest town in the country?

As reported in The Press, the Employment Relations Authority has ruled against the current owner of the Springfield Hotel three times, with penalties coming to a total of more than $60,000 for humiliation, wage arrears and breaching the Employment Act.

The Springfield Hotel was also in the news a decade ago. That time a former owner, who was gay, said the “homophobic” community was partly behind the demise of the pub. Members of the community disputed the comment.

Another hospo establishment in the small town became well known during the 2010s for being the subject of some of the worst reviews of any cafe in the country.

And while the town has a magnificent mountain backdrop, it has also become identified with a large doughnut sculpture. Residents appear to have accepted, and possibly even become fond, of the doughnut but that was not always the case, with the original version being destroyed in a suspicious fire.

Here’s a little more about each of the four stories that have dented Springfield’s image:

Springfield Hotel now

As Nadine Roberts reports, Springfield Hotel current owner Blair Wallace was supposed to mentor his apprentice chef, but instead he shouted and swore at her, called her a “dick” and regularly left her to cook all the hotel meals alone.

The publican has now appeared before the ERA three times since his company, Alpine 182 Limited, bought the hotel for $685,000 in March 2019.

His aggression, which included yelling, slamming doors and throwing objects around the kitchen, often left the hotel bartender, too, in tears.

A former manager at the hotel described Wallace as someone who “belittles and demoralises all who work for him”.

A liquor licence application for the Springfield Hotel was made to Selwyn District Council in 2021, about the same time Wallace was convicted of cannabis-related offences.

Following Covid and other delays, the hearing was only held last month. A decision is expected in the coming weeks.

Springfield Hotel 2013

In 2013, a former owner of the Springfield Hotel talked to The Press about the failure of the business.

Malcolm West said he had received “constant name-calling and abuse” because he was gay and advertised his business as a gay-friendly establishment.

“It was a constant battle and I didn’t have the support of the locals,” he said. “I found [the community] very homophobic . . . and it was really difficult.”

He acknowledged rising rent, insurance premiums and the Canterbury earthquakes had also affected business.

Residents responded to the comments, saying they resented the claims and felt West’s failure had nothing to do with his sexuality, and more to do with his business decisions – including converting the pub’s toilets into unisex facilities.

In a letter to the editor, resident Graeme Dawson said West had “copped a bit of flak” for being gay when he first took the pub over in 2009. “But it was all tongue-in-cheek, and the people that very occasionally took it too far were never locals.”

Another Springfield resident, Jessica Gunn, said she had “no personal problem” with West but felt he made some “strange business decisions”.

The unisex toilets, complete with chaise lounge, carpeted floors and a television, really “changed the dynamic of the whole place”. Many women had stopped going to the pub after that.

Springfield Store and Cafe

Between early 2014 and mid-2019 the Springfield Store and Cafe was reviewed 101 times on TripAdvisor, getting a “terrible” rating 71 times.

Customers said the owners were grumpy, rude, abusive and a disgrace to hospitality.

Police even had complaints from people who visited the cafe, and said they gave the owners some “customer service advice”.

Springfield residents said customers had left the cafe in tears several times. The busier the cafe, the angrier the couple who owned it seemed to get.

The owners at the time were Karyn and Donald Cullingford, who had taken over the lease nearly a decade earlier, several years after moving from Auckland.

Despite the cafe’s reputation, when Stuff visited for lunch, Karyn Cullingford – the only person working at the time – was pleasant to the handful of customers who came into the store, and even managed a couple of jokes.

Cullingford, who placed fifth and second respectively in the cafe boutique section of the 2012 and 2013 Bakels New Zealand Supreme Pie Awards, acknowledged that on occasion, particularly when she’d worked a lengthy stretch without a day off, she could be “a tad grumpy”.

“If you come in here and treat me like a bit of s…, you’re going to get it back,” she said. Over the years, she’d been threatened with knives, and rape, and “had customers hold me over the counter and hit me in the face”.

Telling people they were from Auckland had been the “biggest mistake of our lives”, Cullingford said.

Cantabrians were “nasty”, she said. “I get people who come in here and say ‘don’t give me any of that … Auckland coffee’.”

A few months after that report in June 2019, the store was sold, with new owners taking over the cafe.

The Springfield doughnut

Unveiled in July 2007, the 3.5m diameter doughnut sculpture was given a six-week resource consent to promote the premiere of The Simpsons Movie.

The Simpsons cartoon is set in a fictional town called Springfield, and doughnuts are a favourite food of character Homer Simpson. The sculpture was given to Springfield in Canterbury by film studio Twentieth Century Fox.

The doughnut proved so popular with locals and tourists that the Springfield Township Committee applied for permanent consent.

But not everyone was a fan. The night after the consent hearing, the doughnut was the target of a suspected arson, and substantially damaged.

Bill Woods, who was township committee chairman at the time, said some opponents saw the doughnut as a visual degradation of the landscape while others thought the town should “not associate with American cartoons about dysfunctional families”.

But that wasn’t the end of the Springfield, Canterbury doughnut.

Woods set about making a six-tonne, fire-resistant, concrete replacement complete with pink icing and sprinkles. It was unveiled as the town’s new giant doughnut in July 2012.