Queenstown is looking to fine Wicked Campers over offensive slogans on the company's vans.
The local council wants to be able to use an existing district plan rule - normally used to regulate signs on buildings - to issue $300 fines when the campervans are seen displaying lewd or sexually explicit signs.
The company's controversial slogans sparked numerous complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority, and Tasman District Council is also investigating banning Wicked Campers vans from its campgrounds.
Queenstown-Lakes District Council want to see if they can prosecute Wicked Campers for displaying displaying sexually explicit slogans on their vans. Photo: RNZ / YouTube
Queenstown-Lakes District Council chief executive, Mike Theelen, told Nine to Noon the camper van slogans had changed in recent years from being clever and funny to offending more and more people and it would be good if the council could encourage Wicked Campers to change its behaviour.
"We've ... asked for a list of their signage so that we can give them advice (as to what) would be determined to be sexually explicit, lewd or otherwise offensive."
But Wicked Campers had indicated they did not agree with the council's plan and had not provided any information.
Mr Theelan said council staff had written to Wicked Campers telling them about its rule and how it would be applied, he said.
"What we're relying on ... is an existing provision in the district plan which makes it a prohibited activity signs that are displaying sexually explicit, lewd, or otherwise offensive content."
Normally, rules in the district plan applied to activities that took place on land and buildings, but the council was preparing to test whether vehicles with those slogans, parked on a council reserve or private property, could also be prosecuted, he said.
Wicked Campers slogans could soon be banned. Photo: RNZ / YouTube
"There are lots of campervan companies out there, a lot of colourful campervans out there. We're not trying to crush that part of the market but we don't necessarily want, as a community, to have that unpleasantness in our face every time a Wicked Camper rental drives by," Mr Theelan said.
If the rule could be enforced, the council would issue an infringement notice against the company, not the occupier or driver of the vehicle. If that went unpaid it would then follow a process similar to an unpaid speeding ticket, where it would be referred to the district court.
It would be the first time a New Zealand council had decided to crackdown on the Australian company using a district plan rule.
