Ardara chip van owner will contest council legal action

Donegal County Council is set to prosecute a woman who has refused to shut a chip-van that has served Ardara for 31 years.
Rosaleen McCollum yesterday received notice that Donegal County Council has instructed a solicitor to prosecute her for breach of two laws.
Ms McCollum bought the van almost three years ago in Ardara town centre from the estate of former owner Hammy Baskin.
For almost 29 years operating on the same site it was known as Hammy’s until Rosaleen and husband Derek renamed it to link it to their surname.
But the council, which never prosecuted the previous owner, is now set to bring 37-year-old Rosaleen to court under by-laws on casual trading introduced in 2004.
The law confines mobile traders to four hours a day and specifies they be at least 100 metres from any other fast-food outlet.
The letter specified that council legal agents had been instructed to prosecute under the 2004 casual trading by-law and for a breach of a roads law.
Rosaleen said she plans to fight the council instruction in court. She said her husband would never get back the farm that he sold in the North to buy the Ardara business.
She added that both would on the dole.