Gas crisis keeps hotels, cafes running on empty

Contractors pump water out of a gas main in Victoria St, Wellington. Picture / Mark Mitchell

The streets of downtown Wellington are littered with roadworks, some deserted, others with contract workers pumping water from the gas network.

The streets are still busy, bustling with the suits that power-walk down Lambton Quay, but the eye-sores - areas fenced off with roadwork barriers - are unavoidable.

One such gaping hole in Featherston St gives off an earthy smell that pinches the nostrils of passersby.

On the other side of the street, the reception area of the Ibis Hotel is empty.

"On Sunday, we were running at 3 per cent: six rooms out of 200. We normally run about 45 to 50 per cent on a Sunday," said Olivier Lacoua, the hotel's general manager.

"We lost about 800 rooms over the week, 500 were shifted to sister hotels. I estimate the losses at about $150,000 to $200,000. That's huge."

There were but three options for the staunch few who remained: cold showers, hot showers in the basement by means of the hotel's electrical camping shower, or being driven to a hotel that had hot water.

"We brought in extra electrical equipment so the kitchen could offer a full service, but unfortunately, there were no guests," Mr Lacoua said.

The outage, caused a week ago by a burst water main flooding the network, is believed to have cost the hospitality industry about $5 million.

Powerco contractors spent yesterday restoring gas, property by property, to about 30 of the remaining 200 or so places that were still without. The company hopes most affected properties will have gas restored by tomorrow.

Mr Lacoua had organised a gas tanker from Auckland to fill the void, but it was not need: the hotel's gas was switched back on early yesterday.

Others were not so fortunate.

"The gas crisis has literally emptied us out," said Murray Leman, manager of the Quest serviced apartments in downtown Johnston St. "You can't run a business like this. We're generally full, but it's hopeless at the moment."

The Quest had stopped taking bookings because he had no idea when the problem would be fixed.

"We've had no information from Powerco. It's pathetic."

While hotels resorted to discounted rooms, cafes and restaurants had to slim down their menus.

A sign on the counter at Katipo cafe listed the meals the cafe could not offer "due to our bad gas", and a Bob the Builder sign outside asked customers not to be deterred.

"Can we cook it? Yes, we can. It'll take more than a little gas outage to stop us, Wendy!"

Other signs, including one outside Juniper Cafe and Espresso Republic, declared gleefully they had no gas issues.

But at the "lunch rush" yesterday at the Leuven Belgian Beer Cafe, there were more staff than customers.

"We'd normally get about 100 or so lunch customers," said general manager Todd Hunter.

He estimated dollar losses in the tens of thousands so far, with potentially more gasless days ahead. "We've been told it'll be back on by the end of the week."