Brothel ordered out of school neighbourhood

Auckland City Council has kicked out a brothel operating in an inner-city suburb.

The brothel in Greenlane's Puriri Ave just one street from Cornwall Park School had been operating under the guise of a massage parlour.

Residents became suspicious when they saw taxis arriving at all hours and began contacting the council in January when they noticed one of the homes had its curtains drawn all day and a red light in the bathroom. One resident had a customer knock on their door looking for the brothel.

Auckland Mayor John Banks has served an abatement notice and asked residents to monitor any further activity.

The owners have been told they must cease operating by May 8.

Mr Banks said: "My first and foremost interest in all of these matters is making sure that the residents, particularly elderly families and families, can live in suburbs without fear of intimidation by the kind of people that tend to frequent these places.

"If we are to accept that brothels are needed in a modern and contemporary society, then there is a place and a time for everything. And the place is not amongst elderly people in their retirement homes, and the time is not in broad daylight adjacent to schools," Mr Banks said.

Family First New Zealand national director Bob McCoskrie said the Government could not continue to ignore the public outcry over the prostitution law.

Opposition to this brothel and another in Greenlane, as well as brothels in Albany and Wellington, and opposition to street prostitution in South Auckland and Dannevirke showed communities were not accepting the liberal law.

"The decriminalisation of prostitution has been a community disaster," he said.