Unfashionable pong gets up noses of irate retailers

The finishing touches are being put on a $4.5 million upgrade of fashionable Lorne St in central Auckland - and it stinks.

A putrid smell is coming from fat and other waste oozing on to the street from a McDonald's restaurant.

"It's gross," said Angela Jayne of St Heliers, who said yesterday that the stench was like greasy fat.

Jewellers John Walters and Brian Lehtonen have been battling McDonald's and the Auckland City Council to do something about the smell, but to no avail.

"I just want a stop to people walking past my shop holding their nose and not looking in my window because of the smell," Mr Lehtonen said.

He and Mr Walters work at New Jewellery, next door to a dock used by McDonald's to remove rubbish from its Queen St restaurant.

"We are frustrated, angry, and it's not good for the look of Auckland," said Mr Walters. "Sure, restaurants have to get rid of their stuff out the back but this is a Third-World smell."

The jewellers, who have been battling successive McDonald's managers for five years to keep the area clean, cannot understand why the council did not fix the problem as part of the Lorne St upgrade. In fact, said Mr Lehtonen, the council made the problem worse by rejigging the drainage so more fat and waste built up and wafted through the air.

According to the council website, Lorne St has been transformed into a high-quality environment where people want to linger to enjoy the shops, cafes and galleries.

McDonald's communications manager Joanna Redfern-Hardisty said the company would like the smell to stop as soon as possible.

McDonald's had a maintenance programme that involved cleaning the dock daily and removing rubbish twice a week. More improvements were being looked at.

She said McDonald's had spoken to the jewellers in the past and an area manager planned another meeting in the next week or so to discuss the matter.

The council's project manager for Lorne St, Eric van Essen, said staff had spoken to McDonald's about how the waste could be treated at source and not get out into the environment.

Mr van Essen said he had asked Auckland City Environments two weeks ago to get on to the matter.

He had no idea when the stench would be gone.