The Canberra Services Club will return to its "spiritual home" next to Manuka Oval to mark Anzac Day on Sunday, after the club was last year unable to commemorate the occasion for the first time in eight decades.
Club president Mike Kinniburgh said he was pleased to be able to return to the site after the pandemic forced a break in 2020, but proceedings were not quite back to normal.
"We can't do two-up because two-up is a game where people want to get into it and rest on the bar and throw bets around and scream across the table at each other. There's no way we could safely distance that, there's no way we could control it," Mr Kinniburgh said.
"We just decided not to do that because it was just too risky for us. How would you feel if some old digger got something from the club on Anzac Day? You'd feel mortified."
Mr Kinniburgh said the club's smaller dawn service always attracted a regular crowd.
"They always have come back for it. And a lot of the people who come back, some of them met their partners in our club from the '30s onwards, because it was a hub of activity and local entertainment, weekend dances and all those sorts of things. It had a great dining hall and kitchen. So people just come back to it. There were kids who were introduced to it by their parents who are now there in their 50s," he said.
This year will mark a decade since a fire destroyed the old Canberra Services Club building, which has left the site vacant while the club pursues redevelopment options.
Mr Kinniburgh said he hoped the club would return for Anzac Day next year with more certainty over the Manuka site's future.
The club is waiting on a judgement in a Supreme Court case brought against the planning minister's decision to block the club's application to deconcessionalise the site's lease. The case was heard in September last year.
The club had applied to change the lease to allow for a mixed-use development on the site, arguing it would not be financially viable to rebuild a clubhouse like the one destroyed by fire.
Planning Minister Mick Gentleman moved to block the application in 2019 in an effort to protect land zoned for community use. The lease change would have allowed the club to redevelop the site into a mix of commercial and residential facilities along with a new premises for the club.
Mr Kinniburgh said the club was hopeful the decision was overturned so the club could attract new investment to the club and remain at Manuka.
"Our roots are deep there. Without being melodramatic, it is a spiritual home for us. There really isn't another way of saying it," Mr Kinniburgh said.
