spinofflive
hoppers

SocietyDecember 16, 2020

Ex-staff of MAGA-linked Hoppers bar speak out on ‘intense and upsetting’ culture

hoppers

An Auckland bar attracted heat last month for hosting a US election party attended by MAGA hat-wearing Trump supporters. Three former employees have come forward to say that incident is the least of its issues.

Former staff of popular Auckland bar Hoppers have come forward with allegations about the working environment they encountered there, including an incident that led to the resignation of a staffer after complaints over serious sexual harassment by customers.

Once the site of popular live music venue Golden Dawn, just off Auckland’s Ponsonby Road strip, Hoppers Garden Bar was bought and refurbished by sisters Bronwyn and Jessica Payne in 2018. The New Zealand Companies Office lists the sisters as equal shareholders in Thank You Ltd trading as Hoppers. The pair also run Elmo’s pizza bar on Ponsonby Road.

After the US election, three former employees of the bar reached out to The Spinoff to share their stories. All three say the election night party, which prompted social media users to call for a boycott of the bar, was the least of the business’s issues.

Alex*, who was employed by Hoppers for a year, said the bar has a high staff turnover, due to a “customer is always right” attitude that can impact negatively on the staff. “Hoppers was getting a reputation as a bar where you could get away with anything.”

Alex described the culture there as “upsetting and intense”.

A second former employee, Reese, said they felt the owners saw their staff as “replaceable”. “I don’t think they asked me my name, to be honest. I honestly don’t think they knew my name.”

Another former employee, Lee, said staff felt they were considered less important than customers. “[The owners] are very much customer oriented, they care about making money and I think sometimes that’s at the detriment of their staff, who should feel safe. They get a lot of complaints about staff being in bad moods and stuff like that, and I think that’s a general reflection of how they’re treated.”

All three said it was a particular incident, however, that compelled them to speak out. Reese, Lee and Alex said a staff member was sexually harassed by multiple customers on one night – “a whole table of men” – including being grabbed by the face and touched below the waist. Reese said the staff member reported it to management and security on the night in question, and either the operations manager or the owners overruled a decision to kick the offending customers out, allowing them to stay at the bar.

“They handled it incredibly poorly and that person resigned because she didn’t feel safe,” said Lee.

On being contacted by The Spinoff,  Jessica and Bronwyn Payne said they were “aware of an incident where a staff member was sexually harassed by a customer”. However, they didn’t confirm if the customer or customers in question were allowed to stay in the bar on the night after the staff member reported the harassment.

“The safety and comfort of our employees is the most important thing to us. As women in a male-dominated industry, once we heard of the incident we immediately sympathised with the employee and took action,” they said in a statement via email.

They outlined the actions taken after the incident, saying their operations manager discussed the matter with the employee. The Paynes then met with the operations manager to discuss the next steps, and after seeking input from management, they “worked to update protocols and implement further measures for the safety and wellbeing of both our employees and patrons”.

Later an all-staff meeting was called and attended by “about 15 people”, according to Reese, in which a colour coding system to address any future incidents of harassment was introduced. But Reese said the initial incident, and their handling of it at the time, was never addressed. Lee and Reese told The Spinoff that when the staff member in question raised it, she was called “childish” for revisiting the issue.

“And then they implied that sometimes the female staff might exaggerate things to gossip and have little work dramas,” Lee said.

Screengrabs from Bronwyn Payne’s Facebook and Instagram: sharing a conspiracy theory posted by Billy Te Kahika, a photo of both Payne sisters wearing MAGA hats, and an Advance NZ petition.

The Paynes reject the suggestion they called the staff member childish “in relation to the complaint of harassment”.

“We took this issue very seriously and prioritised putting in place new protocol and training to help combat future issues of inappropriate customer behaviour. Further, in respect of the employee, we confirm that a position of continued employment at our alternative venue was offered to help address the concerns raised and make the employee feel more comfortable. The employee wrote to us to say they appreciated the time and effort we put into trying to resolve the issue, but overall elected to pursue other employment offers.”

Reese says another incident involved a patron being asked to leave by a manager due to having called a bouncer the n-word on a previous occasion. Reese says that when the patron and his party became confrontational, one of the bar’s owners “diffused” the situation by allowing the group to stay – and even brought them a bottle of champagne that she then shared with the table.

“I was like, ‘Oh, you guys don’t really care’,” Reese said. “Someone can come in and call a bouncer the n-word and get a bottle of champagne. A female gets grabbed by a man, don’t worry, it’s a rich white dude, he gets to stay.”

The Paynes also reject this account, saying: “The customer who made the racist remark did return at a later date. They were immediately asked to leave and did so willingly.”

In the lead-up to the US election night, the word among staff was that the partners of both Jessica and Bronwyn Payne were strong Trump supporters, said Lee, and that the election night party would encourage people to show their support for the US president, who has made unfounded claims about election fraud and has bragged about sexually assaulting women. “The reason I knew they would be taking their MAGA hats with them is because I got invited to join and I got offered a hat. And they offered one to a friend of mine too,” said Lee. Despite some claims on social media, Lee didn’t believe the party was exclusively for Trump supporters, however.

On the night of the party, a group of friends caught wind that it would be attended by people in MAGA hats and decided to enter the bar to see for themselves. A young Black Auckland woman captured altercations on video between herself and her friends, and staff and patrons, some of whom were wearing the hats, and published them on Instagram. The videos show the group being kicked out of the bar by staff.

She told The Spinoff: “It made me sad for all of my friends and family in America. To me that hat means racism, it means horror, it means violence.”

Hoppers released a statement the following day stating that the entourage the party was held for included Democrat supporters and only a “small minority of Americans that attended were Republican supporters”. They added: “Hoppers has no political agenda.”

Alex said that night in early November had her on the verge of quitting, a decision confirmed by finding Bronwyn Payne was promoting dubious Covid-19 content on her personal social media – including posts from conspiracy theorist and aspiring politician Billy Te Kahika of Advance NZ. The sisters also appeared in a post on Instagram wearing MAGA hats. This was the last straw, said Alex. “It didn’t feel very welcoming.”

*Names have been changed 

Keep going!
A proposed zoning change will mean land at a South Auckland golf club can no longer be used for housing. (Photo: Tina Tiller)
A proposed zoning change will mean land at a South Auckland golf club can no longer be used for housing. (Photo: Tina Tiller)

SocietyDecember 16, 2020

Former Herald owner, golf club in clash over South Auckland rezoning plans

A proposed zoning change will mean land at a South Auckland golf club can no longer be used for housing. (Photo: Tina Tiller)
A proposed zoning change will mean land at a South Auckland golf club can no longer be used for housing. (Photo: Tina Tiller)

Ex-member of the exclusive Royal Auckland and Grange Golf Club and former New Zealand Herald owner Michael Horton has broken ranks with his former golf-playing peers to call out the club on plans to reduce the amount of rates it pays.

Retired newspaper publisher Michael Horton and a small group of concerned South Auckland residents are crying foul over a golf club’s request to rezone its property. 

The Papatoetoe-based Royal Auckland and Grange Golf Club (RAGGC) wants to change 80 hectares of its beautifully manicured land from its current residential zoning to be an Open Space – Sport and Active Recreation zone, which people have until December 17 to make submissions on.

Michael Horton, a former member of the 125-year-old golf club, has spoken out against the move, given the rezoning doesn’t change the public’s access to the land and it relieves the club of a hefty rates bill.

“My main concern [if this plan change goes ahead] is they will occupy 80 hectares of prime land in the middle of South Auckland. There should be an opportunity for the public to use the space, that’s heavily subsidised by the ratepayer, in an area which has very little public amenity,” he told The Spinoff.

ROCC’s Donna Wynd, left, and Michael Horton during his NZ Order of Merit investiture (Photo: Justin Latif/Government House)

Respect Our Community Campaign (ROCC), a group of local residents from the Papatoetoe, Ōtāhuhu and Māngere area who speak up on issues they believe are detrimentally impacting it, say the land is perfectly located for housing, given its proximity to Middlemore hospital, schools, a railway station and the motorway. 

“I don’t see why we should be subsidising these guys,” said ROCC’s Donna Wynd. “If it’s zoned residential, they should be paying residential rates, and the land should be used for housing.”

Horton, who is best known for his involvement in Wilson and Horton Ltd, the former publisher of the New Zealand Herald, of which he was managing director for 27 years, said the plan change follows on from the club’s large redevelopment project that has cost $66 million so far. 

“I’ve been in conflict with them for about five years over the whole thing,” he said. “I initially opposed what they wanted to do, because they initially said it would cost $13 million, and then it ended up being a $66 million project. It’s a massive expenditure for a game of golf. They’re not building a hospital or something, it’s just a game of golf.”

Prior to applying for the plan change, the club sold off sections of its land, then redeveloped its site to increase the course from 18 to 27 holes, while also building a brand new clubhouse. Horton says the dispute turned toxic and he finally quit the club earlier this year. 

“Their response to me felt pretty violent. When I’ve gotten up at meetings to suggest what they’re doing is inappropriate, I’ve been met with boos and hisses. It’s all pretty ugly,” said Horton. 

“There’s a bunch of guys who, regardless of cost or anybody else, were going to do what they wanted to do, because they wanted to create the best golf course in Australasia and they wanted the kudos for it – that’s my assumption of it. 

“When you see the course, it’s a joke, really. It’s got years of settling in before you even get a first-rate course. But these guys who took control have very little experience of business or golf course management or anything other than their egos.”

Horton’s ideal outcome would be for part of the course to be turned into a public park.

“The additional area where the extra nine holes is to be completed should instead be made available to residents who live in one of the country’s most deprived and under-resourced populations,” he said.

According to Grant Hewison, a lawyer who specialises in the Resource Management Act and a supporter of ROCC, it would be very difficult to force the club to use its private land for anything other than what it wishes, but council needs to understand what is lost if the plan change goes ahead.

“While the owners of land zoned for residential purposes probably cannot be legally compelled to use it for the purposes of residential housing or publicly accessible park, in a housing crisis, they should be paying for the opportunity cost of not doing so,” said Hewison.

 And he says the legal argument for denying this plan change is clear. 

 “Auckland Council should turn down this proposed plan change as it will result in the loss of an area of residential zoning that is well located in relation to well-established community and transport infrastructure. Residential use is the most efficient and economic use of this land. This also aligns with the National Policy Standards on Urban Development and the Auckland Unitary Plan Regional Policy Statement, which aim to develop a well-connected compact urban form.”

We have put a number of questions to RAGGC chief executive Rob Selley, and he has provided this response: “The club has always, and continues to, pay council rates. [And] no, the plan change does not relate to the construction of the clubhouse and golf course. They are already built.”

Auckland Council has not responded to requests for comment.

The public can make their submission here.

But wait there's more!