Thousands of people are planning a mass barbecue event in Perth, Australia, outside the home of a vegan who recently ramped up her legal battle against her neighbours for a number of things they do that she says are upsetting to her—one of which is cooking meat and fish from their backyard.
“Cilla Carden has a problem with her neighbours cooking meat on their BBQ, because she’s a vegan. Recently taking them to the Supreme Court!” the event organisers announced on the Facebook community event “Community BBQ for Cilla Carden.”
The event, planned for Oct. 19 at 3 p.m., has more than 5,200 people registered as “going” and 12,000 registered as “interested.”
“Don’t let Cilla destroy a good old Aussie tradition, join us for a community BBQ in protest of her actions, and help Cilla Carden GET SOME PORK ON HER FORK,” the event description reads. “BYO hotdog buns, p.s. NO VEGANS.”
Cilla Carden, from Perth, Western Australia, recently took her next-door neighbour Toan Vu all the way to the State Administrative Tribunal and the Supreme Court, demanding that Vu’s household stop smoking, bouncing balls, and even cooking meat on the barbecue in their own backyard, according to the Daily Mail.
“They’ve put it there so I smell fish, all I can smell is fish. I can’t enjoy my backyard, I can’t go out there,” Carden, a massage therapist, told 9News.
“It’s been devastating, it’s been turmoil, it’s been unrest, I haven’t been able to sleep,” Carden added, referring to the things that have been irritating her, which include reflective lights and the smell of cigarette smoke from the neighbour’s backyard.
She also cited sounds that bother her, which include chairs scraping on concrete, pet birds, and even the sound of children bouncing their basketball, The Guardian reported. According to the paper, the legal battle against Vu, who lives with his wife and children, began in August 2017.
According to 9News, Carden’s neighbor said he has already removed the barbecue and told his children to stop playing basketball.
According to the Daily Mail, Carden took Vu and his wife to the tribunal in January, but her case was dismissed. She then applied to the Supreme Court to appeal the decision but the court quashed her application in July. Despite this, she refuses to give up and says she will seek other ways to address her case.
“This is the Aussie version of ‘storm area 51’ and she can’t sue all of us!” one person wrote on the now thousands-strong community event page.
That comment appears to be made in jest—organisers have pointed out that the protest will be a peaceful one.
Carden told the Daily Mail that the situation has been “blown out of proportion.”
“This is not about a vegan versus meat issue,” she told the paper. “I respect the right of people to eat meat. I have no problem with barbecues.”
She added that “the real issue is one between neighbours.”
Since the posting of the barbecue event, Carden has consulted with a lawyer, John Hammond, who is warning that “any person who seeks to attend Ms Carden’s property on Saturday, October 19, 2019, or at any other time in relation to this event or matter will be referred to the WA police on the grounds of trespass,” the Daily Mail reported.
Hammond added that security cameras will be installed to capture footage of anyone who may be “attending the property” of Carden and that such footage would be sent to the police.
Organisers of the event have cautioned that nobody is allowed to enter Carden’s property and added that wardens will ensure this doesn’t happen. The organisers announced that neighbours throughout the street who are participating in the event will have their front yards open for access to the public, and their driveways will be open for food trucks to park in.
