Spacies not a public menace - council

A spring clean of Hutt City Council bylaws has deemed that the humble "spacie parlour", gathering place to masses of teens for more than 30 years, is no longer a threat to the public.

Lower Hutt Mayor David Ogden said the outdated Amusement Galleries Bylaw related to a bygone day, when spacie parlours attracted groups of youths to "spend their pennies on the coin machines", and were deemed to be trouble spots.

The bylaw was revoked at the Hutt City Council meeting on Tuesday night.

"History has caught up with us. This is one of those quirky laws that is used very rarely, if at all," Mr Ogden said.

The law was intended to manage behaviour in and around places that were home to favourites such as Space Invaders and Street Fighter.

He could not remember a particular event that would have triggered it, but life used to be different.

There was a time when TV had not been invented. "Pubs shut at 6pm and going to a dance was what you did for entertainment," he said.

Sometimes it seemed as though a pied piper had come along and taken all the kids away - because "you just don't see them out in the streets any more".

Police had been consulted about the current need for the bylaw and had confirmed that it no longer existed.

- © Fairfax NZ News