City bar comes out shooting

Trevor James with staff Shannon Brown and Aline Muir outside the Shotgun Betty's bar and nightclub on Vine St in Whangarei. Photo / John Stone

The biggest bar on Whangarei's Vine St has had its second facelift in three years and reopened last week as Shotgun Betty's with a lighter interior - a mix of music and Tex-Mex food.

The new owner is Trevor James, who has come north from Christchurch where earthquakes closed the Mad Cow bar he successfully operated in the city centre for many years.

Shotgun Betty's has replaced Malbas bar and nightclub, which went into liquidation in April along with its parent company in Palmerston North.

Malbas bought into Whangarei in 2010 when it acquired Danger! Danger!, a bar with a "Kiwiana rustic-style" exterior founded by Whangarei accountant and businessman Ross Vickers about 2001 and co-owned by his wife, Cathy.

Mr Vickers now runs Orange Door Entertainment, a music video business he directs along with Tony Wheeler, of Onerahi, who rang Christchurch back in June and asked Mr James what he was up to.

The Mad Cow was bogged in insurance delays along with scores of other earthquake-hit businesses and when Mr James said he was in limbo he was advised to check out Malbas.

He came to Whangarei in July for talks with the failed nightclub's liquidator Garry Whimp, landlords and liquor merchants. With support from his bank, he signed a lease, hired staff and got to work with contractors altering Malba changes to the building.

While the heavy timbers which made Danger! Danger! so attractive have been retained, the back of the bar has been divided so popular music can be staged on one side of the building, hits from the 80s and 90s in the Moonshine Lounge on the other side, and private functions at the back.

The 1893sq metre site, now fronted by the Intec Interiors and Pagani shops on Cameron St, is in three lots owned by McBreen Jenkins Plant Holdings, directed by Fraser Hardie, James Hardie and lawyer James Kirkpatrick, all of Whangarei. The property has a land value of $1.16 million and capital value of $2.65 million.