Uniquely McMotueka

March 1, 2008

When the world's biggest fast food chain announced it was coming to town, the prospect of McMotueka was too much for some in the town to bear. Geoff Collett looks at the campaign which has been ignited as a result.
It should be one of the first things you see as you reach Motueka's town centre from the south: the golden arches, that unmistakable symbol that the world's biggest fast food chain is here and ready for business.
It's a handy spot the McDonald's corporation has settled on for its proposed arrival in one of the relatively few remaining corners of provincial New Zealand not yet to host its outlets : on the corner of Motueka's busy High St and Whakarewa St, smack in the centre of vision for hungry new arrivals in town casting about for somewhere to grab a bite, and strategically located so that any building on the site will help obscure the rival KFC outlet a stone's throw along the street .
For now, though, it is an unprepossessing piece of land - scrubby and crying out for development maybe, but not something most passers-by would even register, nevermind pick as a battlefield.
But, without wanting to get carried away, that's what it is becoming - even, if a band of campaigners have their way, the proposed location of Mackers' last stand in Motueka.
Local opposition to a behemoth like McDonald's arriving in a small community is nothing new. Ask Gary Williams, who pioneered the outlets in Nelson (he has quit the business since).
His first exposure to the brand was on a sports trip to Whangarei in 1979, when a mate was trying to open that city's first McDonald's, and facing a hostile reception from the locals. They complained about traffic, about litter, about smell, just as some in Motueka are doing almost 30 years later. Whangarei got its McDonald's.
Williams has heard pretty well every argument against the company in the time since, especially after he opened his own outlet in Nelson's Rutherford Street about 20 years ago (joined later by a smaller one in Tahunanui). The one constant through that period is that every time, McDonald's has stared its opponents down and got on with what it wanted to do. Williams doesn't expect Motueka to be any different.
Tara Forde and Helen Guerrero do. It is no accident that the lobby group which has sprung out of the efforts they're spearheading to keep Motueka Mac-free is called Uniquely Motueka. Whatever the experience elsewhere - however many outlets opened, Big Macs served in the rest of the world - they want to see their community retain its points of difference, starting with keeping the golden arches far, far away. No nearer than Nelson, at least.
The pair certainly strike as a formidable combination - passionate in their beliefs, withering in their arguments and rhetoric, damning accusations at their fingertips, determined, articulate and media savvy.
It's that last point which really marks this particular anti-McDonald's campaign out from the norm. Since Uniquely Motueka emerged little more than a month ago, the town - and specifically the no-Mac message - has had the sort of national media attention most local-boosters could only salivate about.
Whether they just got lucky, or have - as they believe - tapped into a deep wellspring of community unease, even McDonald's New Zealand managing director Mark Hawthorne admits to being taken by surprise by the level of vehemence and attention directed at the company's plan.
Guerrero - a 35-year-old mother of three with a close interest in ``healthy living lifestyles'' - repeatedly dismisses McDonald's as ``not a community minded company'', even a ``sinister'' one.
``Why should we allow a new company into this town who has absolutely no interest in our character, the type of people who live here?'' she argues.
``We have a vast cross section of society here. We have a very, very high level of alternative people, who support local produce and local businesses, of people who love nature, people who are into their healthy-living lifestyles. That's part of the reason people choose to live here.''
Not only is the possible presence of McDonald's absent from anyone's list of reasons for wanting to be in Motueka, the pair argue, but it represents the very things that the town should be distancing itself from as it seeks to stamp its own ``brand'' in the world.
Uniquely Motueka has any number of sticks to beat McDonald's with: the traffic and associated road hazards, the litter, the smell of frying, the late-night noise, the damage to the health of people who may be tempted to eat more fast food, and then the more insidious aspects: McDonald's tarnished reputation globally, around resource use, treatment of animals, its insensitivity to host communities, its child-focused marketing, its commandeering of food-production systems to suit its monstrous appetites for homogeneous ingredients, and so on and on. It might sound like just another footnote in the long history of McDonald's bashing, but the Motueka group is convinced that it has public sentiment behind it .
More immediately and strategically, the group has targeted the approvals process followed by Tasman District Council in allowing McDonald's to build in the town. Council planners decided that the application was near enough to the expectations spelled out in their rules not to require it to go through a public hearing. Uniquely Motueka is arguing that the planners misjudged the effects and level of community interest in McDonald's, and should re-think the permission that has been given.
Forde - a 22-year-old who got herself elected to the town community board in October's elections - is especially keen to zero-in on the town's youth, talking with and at the high school, organising student debates on the McDonald's question. But both women say the issue is being talked about throughout the community, irrespective of age or lifestyle. Yes, they agree, there are those who are quite happy, even enthusiastic, about the prospect of having the golden arches shining bright on High St. They've stirred up some strong contrary feelings themselves.
But what Guerrero despairs at is the response of another local who told her she was wasting her time trying to fight McDonald's - that he had twice had small businesses in the town crushed by the arrival of big competitors arriving from outside, that nothing could hold back the tide.
Can she, and Uniquely Motueka, stop this machine? ``Absolutely. If one person doesn't try, then we give them permission to just bulldoze their way in.''
Of course, as far as McDonald's is concerned, it already has the permission, courtesy of the Tasman council.
Mark Hawthorne may express surprise at the level of passion his company has stirred up in Motueka.
He will acknowledge that perhaps the Motueka campaign will stir up similar opposition when McDonald's wants to move into other towns (although he adds that they're welcomed by the majority in many places; he even took a call from Alexandra in the wake of the Motueka publicity, inviting the company to the Central Otago town).
He is keen to make the point that, in one sense, McDonald's has long been in Motueka - Talley's Fisheries is a major supplier of hoki for the fast food chain's operations throughout New Zealand and beyond.
He even says the company would be happy to talk through community concerns if invited, although ``clearly if those discussions only involve us not being in the town, then it's not going to be very fruitful''.
The public relations spin aside, however, Gary Williams' point - that ultimately, all of this hoo-hah is so much water off a duck's back to McDonald's - seems the truth of things.
Hawthorne doesn't welcome the veiled threats both Guerrero and Forde have made of ``non-violent direct action'' if McDonald's does go ahead. (Guerrero declines to elaborate beyond vague talk of leaflet drops and the like.)
But the bottom line as far as Mark Hawthorne is concerned, is that ``we're starting to build a restaurant next month and it should be open in July. So to that extent, many might see the protest as being admirable, but not entirely effective''.
So, there is no room for doubt: Mot vs Mac's won't end up as the biggest giant-killing story since the Old Testament.
The only caveat on that is that doubt seems to have no foothold on Guerrero's and Forde's side either. McDonald's may be coming to Motueka, like it or not, but just how happy the meals served within turn out to be, how warmly the golden arches glow along the Motueka high street - well, that will lie in the hands of the townsfolk.
 Nelson Mail