Council easing up on sex in the city

By BERNARD ORSMAN

Controls on the sex industry in Auckland City look set to be eased in a few areas, despite overwhelming calls for more restrictions.

Proposed changes to the draft bylaw give the White House adult entertainment centre in Queen St a reprieve, and commercial sex premises such as strip clubs and adult sex shops will be allowed to operate at ground level in Fort St.

The proposals will go to the full council on December 18 for a final decision.

A committee of six councillors considering 952 submissions on the draft bylaw for brothels and commercial sex premises yesterday recommended an exemption for brothels within 250m of Kadimah College because the school was moving.

The White House, located at the old Theosophical Society building in Queen St, was caught out by the bylaw banning central city brothels within 250m of a school.

White House owner Brian Le Gros said he was relieved and happy at the exemption.

Mr Le Gros, who was collecting three of his children from the kindergarten in Myers Park at the back of the White House when the Herald told him about the exemption, said it was odd to be allowed a strip club next to a kindergarten but not across a gully from a school.

The councillors hearing the submissions - Juliet Yates, Bill Christian, Sheryl McKelvie, Graeme Mulholland, Noelene Raffills and Faye Storer - also recommended relaxing a bylaw banning commercial sex premises at street level in the area bounded by Fort Lane, Fort St and Customs St.

This was to encourage commercial sex premises within a central city area. The draft bylaw had banned all commercial sex premises at ground level. Brothels continue to be banned at ground level.

The chairwoman of the group of councillors, Juliet Yates, said 31 per cent of submissions supported the draft bylaw and 52 per cent wanted tighter restrictions on the sex industry.

But calls to ban soliciting and pimping in city streets were outside the powers of the council and extending the 250m distance rule for brothels from schools and churches was unreasonable, Mrs Yates said.

The councillors decided to take therapeutic massage parlours out of the bylaw and to reject submissions from the sex industry for larger signs, signs with flashing lights and more graphic images on signs.

The councillors also recommended a review of the bylaw after 18 months.

Bylaw changes

* Sex shops allowed at ground level in Fort St.

* Exemption for White House in Queen St.

* Therapeutic massage premises excluded from bylaw.

Changes rejected

* Extending 250m distance rule from churches and schools.

* Banning brothels within 250m of preschools and churches in the CBD and from suburban shopping centres.

* Banning soliciting and pimping in city streets.

* Allowing larger, more graphically explicit signage.