AFTER six-and-a-half years in North Perth, it’s hasta la vista for Mexican eatery the Flying Taco. Its spot on Angove Street is going great guns these days but after nearly seven years doing the same thing owner Anna Heifetz is feeling the need to move on. “It’s bittersweet but as we get older we have…

FOR the first time owners of vacant blocks in Vincent were charged double rates this year. Fed up with empty lots plaguing the city like broken teeth, mayor John Carey proposed the plan to encourage landowners to do something constructive with their land. “There is a cost to the community,” he says. “Vacant blocks can…

The owner of a Beaufort Street convenience and smoking accessories store is feeling the heat from some local reaction. Since opening Lucky 9 and Cloud 9 under one roof on May 1, the owner, who did not want his name used, says he’s had visits from the WA police, WA health department and Vincent city council.…

LANDOWNERS in Vincent face a relatively mild 3.62 per cent rates increase this year. Mayor John Carey says “we’ve got the lowest rates rise in seven years”. Last year’s clocked in at 3.92 per cent, and before that it hovered in the mid-fours. The milder increase can be put down to cash coming through from…

FESTA della Repubblica is the Italian national holiday, making June 2 the most important day on the country’s calendar. It happily ties in with WA Day, ensuring celebrations for this year’s Italian Festival in Perth are enjoyed by many over the long weekend. The day marks the historic vote in 1946 when post-facsism and post-war…

THE four Lenzarini brothers arrived in Australia with next to nothing in their pockets but a determination to make something of themselves. Leaving behind the lush green mountainous region of their home in the province of  Lucca, Garfagnana in Tuscany, the flat brown harshness of WA in the 1950s was confronting to say the least.…

LAST year’s Miss Italy Australia Dana Bechelli missed the opportunity to vie for an international title when the competition’s Italian leg was cancelled. And for the foreseeable future she’ll be the last Australian Miss Italy. The pageant is on hold following the death of founder Enzo Mirigliani, Italo-Australian Welfare and Cultural Centre president Enzo Sirna…

PINA NICOLETTI isn’t sure whether she has six or seven trophies for the torte she’s whipped up for the annual Italian Festival’s “la competizione dolciaria” (sweets competition). “I didn’t compete one year, and mum won,” she tells the Voice. There’s a tradition, and passion, for sweets-making handed down the family’s generations of women: “Mum was…

PERTH Voice photographer Matthew Dwyer snapped this happy gang of around 60 Italian seniors heading off for a day of exploration. The trip was organised by the Giovani di Una Certa Eta (it means “youth of a certain age” says Licia Stazzonelli, who was on the bus). The day ended with a visit to a…

A $72 MILLION development with 347 units, two offices and a restaurant will be built on Railway Parade in Maylands. The mammoth 17,259 sqm Finbar project, bounded by Kennedy Street and Tenth Avenue, includes a convenience store and car parking. The site is in a special planning zone near the line that allows higher density…