One of the highlights of this year's Cuba Street Carnival was the painting of a GO Wellington bus by some of New Zealand's top graffti/street artists and German artists Via Grafik.

The finished product looked great, the bus took pride of place in the Night Parade, and can still be seen in normal use on Go Wellington's routes.

 
So when the independent Academy Cinema in Auckland planned to get some local graffiti artists to paint a Dargaville High School bus outside the cinema to help promote new graffiti documentary Alter Ego, you'd think the Auckland City Council would be as supportive as Wellington was for the bus painting.

But no! Find out the Auckland City Council's bizarre reaction after the jump.

Auckland City Council is trying to block the special parking permit the bus would need to be painted outside the Academy Cinema because, says cinema manager Gina Dellabarca, "it deemed the nature of the art-work to be contrary to their 'tough stance' against graffiti however and have denied the application for a special parking permit."

Which makes it seem like the council imagines the bus is going to be decorated by disgruntled 12-year-olds, writing their tags all over it rather than an actual mural by established artists.

We hope the Academy (and Dargaville High) manages to get their bus painted, one way or another, but perhaps this demonstrates that Auckland has a long way to go if it wants to be considered New Zealand's cultural capital.

Photo courtesy of PhillipC on Flickr