New Zealand: Christchurch residents take aim at 'inappropriate' Gun City store

C/U 'Gun City' store front, Sockburn
M/S Sockburn Dairy sign
SOT, Mark Peters, Independent Candidate for Hornby ward: "Gun City landing in our community took us all by surprise. We didn't have any idea it was coming. The council obviously knew it was coming but the local residents has no idea. The first inkling they had was when the signage started going up on the premises and it's certainly been taken with great surprise but not welcomed entirely."
W/S Gun store
SOT, Mark Peters, Independent Candidate for Hornby ward: "It's an unfortunate welcome to the city when you come into one of our main arterial welcomes to the city on the Sockburn roundabout and the first sign you see it Gun City. We are known as the Garden City here in Christchurch, and to have a large sign saying Gun City is, yeah, perhaps a little bit inappropriate. Particularly after what happened here in recent times."
W/S Gun store
SOT, Mark Peters, Independent Candidate for Hornby ward: "I would have thought that in light of what our city has been through in recent times, with March 15, that it would have been a good idea for the council and the business owner to perhaps think about what was being put in our community and then decide that perhaps it would be good to have a talk and work it through with the local residents, so that they could understand that, 'yes, we are coming here, we planned this long before the unfortunate events of March 15.'"
M/S Shops
SOT, Mark Peters, Independent Candidate for Hornby ward: "It's a retail store after all, and so long as the retailer acts within the law that is in place in New Zealand, there's not a lot that can be done about it. He's fully entitled to have a store, and he's fully entitled to have signage. As long as the signage meets the requirements of the local laws, then there's not a lot that can be done."
M/S 'Gun City'
SCRIPT
People in the Christchurch suburb of Sockburn have 'not welcomed entirely' a new gun shop opening up in town, a member of the local residents' association said on Sunday.
Mark Peters, who is also running as an independent candidate for Hornby, said the new store 'took us all by surprise.'
"We didn't have any idea it was coming. The council obviously knew it was coming but the local residents has no idea. The first inkling they had was when the signage started going up on the premises," he said.
The store has garnered particular attention as it comes in the aftermath the March 15 mosque shootings in the city.
"We are known as the Garden City here in Christchurch, and to have a large sign saying 'Gun City' is, yeah, perhaps a little bit inappropriate," Peters said. "I would have thought that in light of what our city has been through in recent times, with March 15, that it would have been a good idea for the council and the business owner to perhaps think about what was being put in our community."
Fifty-one people were killed and another 49 were injured after 28-year-old Australian Brenton Tarrant opened fire in two consecutive shootings at mosques during Friday prayers, which he live-streamed on Facebook.
Media reports describe the attacks as 'Islamophobic' and motivated by 'white supremacy' while Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said it was 'one of New Zealand's darkest days.'