Lucas pleaded guilty at the Latrobe Valley Magistrates’ Court on Friday to operating a category-one aquatic facility without registering it with Baw Baw Shire Council.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Since 2020, Lucas has been a Baw Baw Shire Councillor.<\/p>\n
The council conducted the public health investigation against Lucas, which led to the charges.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Image](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/422769bf33f2eaf6e3d438e9fd05ff45.jpeg\")
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\u00a0Ben Lucas at the Latrobe Valley Magistrates Court on Friday. (ABC News)<\/p>\n
Lucas is the sole director and secretary of Dojo Enterprises.<\/p>\n
He was charged with one breach of the Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008 for operating a category-one aquatic facility without being registered with Baw Baw Shire Council between March 19, 2026 and April 7, 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Public health and wellbeing regulations define a category-one aquatic facility as a swimming pool, spa pool, or interactive water feature.<\/p>\n
A council investigation and review of its records discovered Lucas was operating the Zen Den Warragul, which offered saunas and ice baths, without being registered with the council as a category-one aquatic facility in Warragul in early 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While Lucas later registered the business with the council and was issued a penalty infringement notice, the business was then relocated to the nearby town of Drouin.<\/p>\n
Further council investigation found the Zen Den Drouin business was not registered with the council as an aquatic facility.<\/p>\n
Candidate sentenced<\/p>\n
Magistrate Anthony Gywnne fined Lucas $4,000 and placed him on an adjourned undertaking for 12 months as a “significant penalty”.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“The court gets \u2026 the fact that you are someone who is intending to provide something back to the community,” Magistrate Gywnne said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“But there are requirements that need to be followed. There are procedures, there are regulations.”<\/p>\n
Lucas said he was glad the ordeal was behind him.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I’m glad that common sense prevailed in the end. I admitted liability for an administrative oversight; I’m just not sure the council’s proposed punishment met the crime,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I’m glad that’s out of the way, and we can crack on for November. We need to take this state back.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A One Nation candidate at the upcoming Victorian election has faced court over alleged breaches of the health…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87988,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[22,21,110122,106604,3352,1110,149005,316,149006,1955,149004,149003],"class_list":["post-87987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-ben-lucas","tag-candidate","tag-council","tag-courts","tag-dojo-enterprises","tag-election","tag-health-code","tag-one-nation","tag-zen-den-drouin","tag-zen-den-warragul"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87987\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}