Auckland plagued by graffiti at City Rail Link site, two more businesses shut

Friday, 13 August 2021

The streets around Auckland's City Rail Link have become a tagger's paradise. First published in August 2021.

An anti-graffiti squad has been sent in to clean up the taggers’ paradise in the streets around Auckland’s City Rail Link (CRL) construction site, as more businesses shut their doors permanently.

Business owners said they had been unable to get CRL's “street response manager” to respond quickly to their complaints about the graffiti, but action happened after photos were taken by Stuff on a visit to the area.

Business owners say the constant noise, dirt, narrow gloomy pedestrian alleyways and growing anti-social behaviour in the streets around the CRL site are blighting their businesses, and driving shoppers away.

But their pleas to the Government and Auckland Council for financial support, so they can survive to until the CRL works are completed in 2024, have so far fallen on deaf ears. Transport Minister Michael Wood is still considering a plea for financial support put forward by Heart of the City, which sent him a $50 million proposal in February.

**READ MORE:

* Nightmare on Albert Street

Off-putting to shoppers: A plague of tagging is blighting the area around the City Rail Link construction site.

* 'They are killing us': Business owners along Auckland's City Rail Link construction site close doors permanently

A sign on the door of the Taj Mahal restaurant reads: ‘City Rail Link and the Government has closed this business down with NO compensation.’

* The Detail: Small businesses battling the chaos of Auckland's $4b cone zone

Any financial support would come too late for some businesses. Late last month Da Vinci’s Resturant closed its doors for the last time.

This week, two more businesses on Victoria Street West, fronting the construction works closed their doors for good in August: The Jolly Bird takeaway, and the Taj Mahal restaurant.

Both had signs on the windows saying: “City Rail Link and the Government has closed this business down with NO compensation”.

But local business owners, who have banded together to support each other and protest, scored a minor victory with the sudden tagging clean-up.

Business owner Alex Law reacts in disbelief and fury after his design for a poster advertising his shop was turned down by City Rail Link because it was deemed to 'make the place look messy'. The sound quality of this video is poor as Law has to sh

Jugdish Naran from Roma Blooms, a florist on the corner of Albert Street junction with Victoria Street West said CRL had a street response manager, but that had not resulted in rapid responses to issues like the plague of tagging, which local business owners said was just part of an increase in anti-social behaviour in the area.

“It's the street response’s officer to go around, and observe what’s going on, and if there's graffiti, she’s meant to remove it. She’s meant to do things like that ordinarily. That’s her role,” said Naran.

“When we were taking pictures, the CRL foreman went past. He saw us, and was watching us taking photos, and talking about the graffiti. That went back, obviously, and straight away, they were on to it,” he said.

Shobhana Ranchhodji said: “I do believe they were talking about the graffiti, but them talking about it, and the action, it could be six months or a year down the road, but it was accelerated to get something done all of a sudden.”

Business owner Alex Law says he has been told the posters he wants to put up to advertise his shop would make the area look messy. Law's shop is down the dark pedestrian walkway to the left.

City Rail Link was contacted for comment.

Alex Law, who runs the city centre store Photo Image, is one of the shop-owners who has seen trade drop off a cliff as shoppers give a wide birth to the scruffy, noisy streets around the CRL works.

The beleagured business owners have asked Michael Wood to visit them to see how they are suffering, but he has not done so.

Law said he had his worst-ever day of business last week, taking just $105.

In an emotional video, Law, whose shop was one of those which had been tagged, described how in the midst of the mess, CRL refused to put up posters to support his business, telling him they looked messy.

Law, who struggled to make himself heard over the noise of the construction works, said: “It makes the place looks messy. What the hell is that?”

“They can’t afford to help us with a $10 poster. Where the hell is your help?”

Viv Beck, chief executive of the Heart of the City, said: “These people are devastated. This shouldn’t happen. A public project should not ruin people’s lives.”

Beck was frustrated over the months of anguish and uncertainty suffered by the business owners as they waited for the Government to make a decision.

“They have had plenty of time to make a decision on this,” she said.

ACT MP Simon Court is championing the business owners’ cause, and has quizzed Wood in a series of written questions, with Wood telling him this week he would respond to the Heart of the City proposal “as soon as I can”.

When Court asked whether assistance for the business owners was a matter of high priority, the answer was: “Yes, it is a high priority to provide certainty on this matter as soon as the Government is in a position to do so.”