Crow ready to tackle hecklers at meeting

CAMERON BURNELL/Taranaki Daily News

ALL TAKERS: Steve Crow outside the New Plymouth RSA.

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Last night Steve Crow pulled off such a magnificent sidestep he would probably now be a sitter for the Inglewood senior rugby team.

The Inglewood-born and raised king of New Zealand's adult entertainment industry was a guest at the Taranaki Chamber of Commerce Business After 5 function at the New Plymouth RSA.

Crow and his brother, David, are part of a business partnership called 435 Devon Limited, which has bought the RSA's Devon St East property and intends redeveloping it into a complex featuring a revamped RSA, conference centre, boutique hotel and travel lodge, and penthouse apartments. The project will also include an underground military museum in honour of their late father Peter, who was a long-time RSA stalwart.

While no-one from the chamber was officially confirming anything last night, the Taranaki Daily News understands that before the function it received calls from local business people claiming to be owed money by the Crow brothers.

These people who had every right to attend the function as chamber members had threatened to disrupt it by sitting at the front of the crowd and heckling the brothers as they talked. It is understood this had led chamber management to consider cancelling the BA5 until the Crows refused to allow this to happen.

So when Steve Crow stepped up on the stage last night, he was ready to fight. "We understand the chamber has received several calls from people threatening to heckle me," he told the more than 100 people attending the BA5.

"Well, let me say right from the start that it won't work. I receive an average of three death threats a week. I get bullets sent to me in the mail. Letters claiming to contain anthrax. None of this sort of thing scares me. So I want to warn you that all you'll do is embarrass yourself and then get thrown out."

Nobody said a word.

"Right then," said Steve Crow. "Let's firstly put a few rumours to bed, and then explain what our plans are for this beautiful site. What we are not doing is converting the place into a brothel, or a strip club, or an adult shop, or anything at all to do with the sex industry.

"And the Crows are also not taking all the money out of the project. Now that's a real joke. The fact is we've already put a lot of money into this project, and we have committed a lot more."

Many may ask just what has motivated the two brothers to take on the project, which largely amounts to a rescue plan for the RSA.

"It's all for our father Peter. He had a life-long love of the RSA, and he asked us to save it.

"This RSA has been around for 90 years now but it hasn't been thriving. Much of this has been because the members have been resistant to change. I say this in the nicest possible way, but your typical RSA member is a cantankerous old bugger who doesn't like change. But if the organisation doesn't change it won't survive."

But the project is progressing well, said Steve Crow, and one significant change is that the property is not known as the New Plymouth RSA anymore it's now known as Te Ara, which translates to the pathway.

"And that's the pathway we're taking. Our objectives are to ensure the long-term viability of the RSA which will have its own very modern facilities, and to expand the range of services that can be offered to the public at this site."