Former Avondale bowlers want their club back
A group of former Avondale Bowling Club members say they are not ’’riff-raffs’’.
They are telling the ‘‘other side of the story’’ after Arthur ‘Pat’ Bell told Stuff.co.nz he had gone about cleaning up the west Auckland club since he became president five years ago.
Back in September the club was lucky to have a restricted sixmonth liquor licence renewal when commissioners put it on notice to clean up its act.
Neighbours told the renewal hearing that patrons often left the premises drunk and disorderly, and reported a number of violent incidents.
Pollard was a member of the club for 19 years and a former club captain.
He left the club earlier this year, he says, due to the behaviour of the current president.
Bell, 59, has convictions for drink driving, as well as one for assault after an incident at the club on New Year’s Eve 2014.
Along with four other former members who have left the club over the past couple of years, Pollard says there were no complaints about the behaviour at the club under previous presidents.
The five former members say they love the club but are angry at the way people have been treated.
The atmosphere at the club has gone downhill in the past few years, they say, and it is now in financial trouble.