Gun store backs down over sign

A Christchurch gun store owner will change controversial signage after pressure from the media and mayor – to one calling the city New Zealand’s ‘‘gateway to hunting’’.

Gun City opened its second Christchurch store by the Sockburn roundabout in August, with a 45-square-metre sign of its logo impossible for city-bound motorists to miss.

Christchurch mayor Lianne Dalziel told owner David Tipple it sent an ‘‘unintended message’’ about the city, referencing the March 15 terror attacks, at one of its major entry points.

After meeting with Dalziel, Tipple told The Press the new sign would be a hunting mural of a mountain scene with a father and children.

The father would have a rifle over his back and the sign would read ‘‘Welcome to Christchurch City – the gateway to hunting in New Zealand’’.

‘‘It’s a good solution for all parties,’’ he said.

The idea was finalised but photos and design still had to be completed, Tipple said.

He expected the signage would be up in the next month.

Tipple said the meeting with the mayor went ‘‘very well’’.

‘‘It’s a good solution for all parties.’’

David Tipple

Dalziel said the

‘‘good compromise’’.

‘‘[I] am pleased to hear that he was already working on alternative signage with the focus on hunting and the great outdoors,’’ she said.

Mitre 10 sparked outrage in June 2008 when a new store in Ferrymead in Christchurch featured a 160m-long bright orange wall. Some local residents threatened a boycott.

A similar spat erupted in Dunedin in 2004, when a large Mitre 10 by the foreshore attracted criticism.

Gun City’s Sockburn store development, which was not publicly notified, prompted complaints from nearby residents, but council staff at the time said the Resource Management Act did not allow the council to regulate the activities.

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