LABOUR'S Tauranga candidate Anne Pankhurst has admitted to not being the person who opened the Mediterraneo Cafe in Devonport Rd, contrary to an assertion in a short self portrait published while she was a city councillor. Ms Pankhurst, 56, was challenged on the claim she opened Mediterraneo by the person whoactually started the business, Robin Feron. The issue came to a head on Thursday when Mr Feron spotted the statement in a Bay of Plenty Times story about Ms Pankhurst winning the Labour Party nomination to contest the Tauranga electorate in next year's general election. The Bay Times took the information from Ms Pankhurst's brief biographical details published on the city council's website during her 2004-07 term on the council. She is now standing for parliament after being defeated in October's council elections. Mr Feron has seen the claim published before, but this time decided to put the record straight. He says he and his partner Andrea John sold Mediterraneo in 1993 a few months after opening the business. "She can bloody well get it right and not cash in on our hard work. To say that she started it is a bit rude." Ms Pankhurst said Mr Feron was absolutely right and she had no idea how it came to be written like that on the council website. It was not meant to be misleading and she wondered if it had been edited. She denied trying to put one across the public. "I apologise for not making that mistake clear - that's what it was. It was a mistake and I have not made it particularly clear. "It was not meant to be misleading and I apologise profusely," Ms Pankhurst said. She ran Mediterraneo for four years in partnership with Jan Griffiths before selling her share to buy into the partnership which opened Astrolabe at Mount Maunganui.
