A reader was charged $4 for a piece of bread in a Tauranga cafe. Photo / Getty Images
The day: warm and sunny, the venue: a cafe in the CBD, outdoor tables, shading trees.
We ordered and paid. Meals delivered, food of good standard. Mine, however, a trifle too spicy for my palate.
I went to the counter and asked for a slice of bread. This was provided. Cost, $4. By reflex I paid.
Back at the table, I surveyed this bland white slice of bread, cold, even slightly icy in the centre. I considered the price I had just paid. Back to the counter. I protested.
The waitress responded that the cafe had to make a profit. On my part I suggested that I would unlikely be a returning customer, so where is the profit?
Enter another waitress. The $4 was refunded with little hassle, the bread remained on the plate, and we left.
Trivial? Probably. But not the sort of service or mind-set that is expected from a touristy city in mid-summer.
Sally Quaddel
Maungatapu
I read in the Bay of Plenty Times Weekend (Letters, January 12) that cruise visitors went to the Elms and the Historic Village. What's the Elms? What's the Historic Village? Both are historic sites.
What's a museum? A historic site.
What do visitors want to see? The history of the area.
What's in Tauranga to see? Shops and tidal stairs to the sea.
The cruise visitors live on the sea and there are shops on the ship: They want to visit what the city is built on.
In my view, the elected officials who voted against the museum obviously don't give a damn about the pioneers of Tauranga, the Mount or Te Puke. We should honour them.
The council is spending thousands of dollars to store valuable artefacts in a warehouse - they could be getting thousands of dollars from cruise visitors and overseas visitors.
Every time I go to another city I go to the museums as they represent the city's past heroes who built it.
Other major cities have museums, no wonder visitors go to Rotorua because they celebrate history in their museum and Māori culture.
(Abridged)
R. White
Te Puke
As the crowd chanted, Seymour walked back into the Beehive with his MPs.