Advocate angered by ‘car boot’ sign

AUCKLAND: An Auckland restaurant is being accused of promoting violence against women after putting up a Valentine’s Day sign suggesting men open the car boot for their dates.

Dominion Rd restaurant Eiffel en Eden this week put up a blackboard sign on the street reading: ‘‘On Valentine’s Day open the car door for her. After Valentine’s Day open the car boot for her.’’

The restaurant manager said yesterday the sign referred to helping women with the groceries — but the sign has been criticised as ‘‘tone deaf’’ and in bad taste, given New Zealand’s poor domestic violence record.

Women’s advocate Sarah Trotman said when she saw an image of the sign she immediately thought it was referring to domestic violence.

She was so ‘‘outraged’’ she drove straight to the restaurant to ask for it be changed.

‘‘The manager told me he was referring to opening [the car boot] for groceries. I said, ‘That is nonsense. Do you appreciate the devastating statistics around violence to women in Aotearoa?’

‘‘He told me to leave the cafe as I was not a customer.’’

Ms Trotman then went outside and altered the sign. She returned an hour later and found the sign had not been changed back.

Restaurant manager Henry Gough said a staff member had written the sign, but he had approved its wording.

‘‘It has nothing at all to do with domestic violence.

‘‘Where do you put your groceries after shopping?

‘‘It is romantic, Valentine’s Day, [helping] with the chores at home.

‘‘There are a few people interpreting it [as domestic violence], but we never intended it that way. We had good intentions.’’

Mr Gough insisted that despite the complaints the restaurant would not be changing the sign.

‘‘Why should we change it? Just because some people don’t like it?

‘‘There is freedom of speech in this country, and there was never a link to violence.’’

Ms Trotman said she did not believe the manager did not know it could be interpreted as referring to violence.

‘‘It think that is an outright lie. The person who wrote it, knew it was inappropriate, but did it anyway.’’

Even the explanation that it was about groceries was deeply sexist, but that was ‘‘another level of discussion’’. — NZME