Tag: street culture

But, the gutters are part of Aotearoa!

Ben Hana, aka Blan­ket Man, and the inau­gur­al Welling­ton­ista Welling­ton­ian of the Year, has been ordered to stay out of bus lanes, after com­plaints that he was sit­ting in the mid­dle of Dixon St, forc­ing bus­es to steer around him.

Blan­ket Man remains adamant he will not obey the court order, claim­ing that the bus lanes and adjoin­ing gut­ters (where he also spends a fair amount of time) are part of Aotearoa, and that, to quote him: “I rep­re­sent the whanau of Aotearoa”.

This case fol­lows anoth­er brush with the law in Sep­tem­ber, when Ben was cit­ed for drink-dri­ving. His defense that time was equal­ly inven­tive, this time claim­ing that the vehi­cle he was dri­ving was not a car but a “waka”, and thus he was not bound by nor­mal road rules. Not sur­pris­ing­ly he lost the case, but not the war, as his pun­ish­ment of com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice was unable to be enforced, as he had no suit­able footwear to com­plete the work in.

[hat-tip: some­where along the way…]