'Mayor' kidnapped and held hostage

Cameron Brewer sizes up a Newmarket entrance way.

Auckland's mayors might need to review their security arrangements after one of them was hijacked under strange circumstances last week. Well, when I say one of them, I'm actually referring to self-convinced Mayor of Newmarket Cameron Brewer.

Last week at a car launch in Newmarket, Brewer told Spy he was manhandled by three Parnell businessmen into a Range Rover which then sped off.

He swears he didn't know the men who grabbed him as he was leaving the function and drove him against his will to neighbouring district Parnell.

"It was surreal. They seemed nice enough guys but as we drove down Broadway they were yelling out the window 'we've hijacked your Mayor' to bewildered onlookers," he said.
Brewer was taken to an undisclosed location and - as he tells it - forced to drink "awful rum and cokes and smoke cigarettes."

The Newmarket personality eventually escaped Parnell - the subject of much inter-suburb rivalry on his part - after telling his captives he needed to go to the toilet.

It seems the whole Mayor of Newmarket moniker has spun out of control. Has Brewer completely convinced himself he is a democratically elected political leader?

It certainly seems he's convinced others he's a real mayor. He's got himself on the speaker's circuit, comments to the media on world events, and even has evangelical photographs of himself on Twitter.

The most hilarious development was when the NZPA issued a story last month about an apparently unidentified man suspiciously measuring up a shop doorway in Broadway, following the Herald's front page pic of the ATM appraiser.

Included in the release was the image that runs at the top of this blog. Sometime later, the NZPA retracted it; obviously alerted to the fact Brewer was the subject and the author of the piece himself.

Even funnier, is that Brewer, along with all the other Auckland mayors, now has a regular "meet the mayor" spot on Big106.2 FM.

However, this gossip columnist has only got herself to blame. It was me who first labelled Brewer the Mayor of Newmarket many moons ago. But who would have thought it would have created a monster?

He is, let's not forget, just the general manager of a business district. Hardly hijacking material, I would have thought.

Rachel Glucina

Pictured above: Cameron Brewer sizes up a Newmarket entry way. Photo / NZPA