Petition against strip club
Hundreds of people have signed a petition against plans for a strip club on New Plymouth’s main street.
Malcolm and Chere McGregor are campaigning against Denys Taylor’s application to have a strip club at 53 Devon St East, near the Liardet St corner.
‘‘They call it a gentlemen’s club; that’s not how gentlemen behave,’’ Malcolm McGregor said.
‘‘We’ve heard a lot of people say they’re not happy about it.
‘‘It’s a family place, a family area, and it’s not the place that we want, that I want, for my city.’’
He said he had spoken to Americans off the cruise ship Masdaam, which docked in New Plymouth on Friday.
‘‘They were just appalled that that would be allowed.’’
Taylor’s plans for the site, to be called Xite, feature a strip club in the basement and he intends to turn the upper floors into a members’ area and a brothel in the future.
The petition, launched last week, has gathered close to 300 signatures and is directed at Mayor Neil Holdom, leaseholder Denys Taylor and landlord Rafad Alsaloom.
It asks the council to decline Taylor’s on-licence tavern adult entertainment application and consider a bylaw which prevents brothels, strip clubs and sex shops on Devon St in the central business district.
The petition also seeks to prevent the landlord leasing the property to anyone wanting to use it for an adult business and asks Taylor to take his proposal elsewhere.
‘‘We’re not protesting prostitution as such – that’s another argument. It’s about placing this strip club and brothel on the main street.
‘‘If he’s persisting on doing this, do it somewhere else.
‘‘I don’t want to have to explain to my children as we walk past – ‘what’s that shop?’ It’s totally inappropriate right in the middle of the main street.’’
The Hearts and Armour massage parlour is close to the library, Malcolm McGregor said, and while that was ‘‘not ideal’’, it was out of the way.
‘‘It’s up the alleyway, discrete, and most kids wouldn’t even know it was there.’’
The couple are organisers of the Agape Dance Festival, which raises funds to fight human trafficking. In 2015 they protested against adult shop Nauti NZ displaying a mannequin wearing ‘‘buckles and straps’’ in its window at 60 Devon St West, near the Clever Kids Education Centre tutoring business.
The owners removed the mannequin.
‘‘It didn’t change anything but it doesn’t mean we accept it,’’ Malcolm McGregor said.
Last week, Gene Martin from neighbouring business Brothers Ink presented a deputation to the New Plymouth District Council opposing the move.
Denys Taylor has previously said the premises will be discrete.
‘‘There’s nothing really people can see from the outside.’’