Streets of sleaze

By Shaun Inguanzo
SEX-OBSESSED Dandenong must abolish explicit billboard advertising and remove sex-related stores from its CBD if the city is to be truly revitalised.
That is the word of angry Dandenong mother Erin Taylor who is demanding answers from the City of Greater Dandenong Council after her nine-year-old son was exposed to a large billboard advertisement for a store called Sexyland last month.
The sign is still hovering over the entrance to Lonsdale Street as motorists drive through central Dandenong from the Doveton end of the Princes Highway.
Ms Taylor said she and her son were returning from football training when he noticed the ‘Bigger, Better, Brighter – Sexyland’ billboard and asked her what Sexyland was.
Ms Taylor said she brushed the questions aside – albeit with a red face.
“I was outraged my boy saw it,” she said.
“I feel that if you go to Toorak or South Yarra you wouldn’t see a massive sign smack bang in the middle of their city.”
Ms Taylor said Dandenong’s overt display of sex was failing to foster a moral society.
“I thought the sign was inappropriate and offensive to women,” she said.
“My boys have been raised to be very moral and upstanding children, so to have that sign there totally offends my family.
“And when we have a crime rate that seems to be escalating, Dandenong doesn’t need something like that.”
Ms Taylor said central Dandenong was also plagued by sex-related stores when other places, it seemed, had very few.
“I know that within a five kilometre radius (of central Dandenong) we have about four shops,” she said.
Sex-related shops in Dandenong include Dandy Adult Books in Robinson Street, New Era Adult Centre in Foster Street, Sexyland Adult Department Store on the Keysbrough side of Cheltenham Road, Club X in Cheltenham Road, Dandenong Adult Books, and G-Spot Adult Superstore in Dandenong-Frankston Road.
Nearby brothels include the Black Opal in Dandenong Street, Garden of Eden in Kirkham Road, Club Visions in Maxwell Street, Fairytales on the South Gippsland Highway, and Moon Club in Rhur Street.
Ms Taylor said the sex overload would not help plans to revitalise central Dandenong.
“It doesn’t do anything for our community, especially when we want to revitalise the city.”
VicUrban, the State Government planning body overseeing central Dandenong’s revitalisation, this week celebrated a landmark Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) decision that prevented a Foster Street nightclub from introducing table top dancing.
VicUrban spokeswoman Suzanne Northey said the decision was an example of how future applications for sexually-explicit stores or entertainment would be rejected in the CBD under major planning amendments introduced last year.
She said VicUrban had no power to stop existing stores from operating, but in the future when leases had ceased, circumstances could change.
“Terms and conditions of the existing leases will be honoured. But, as the initiative takes effect, those sort of uses will eventually move elsewhere,” she said.
Star contacted the council for comment on whether it would scrap sex advertisements on billboards, but did not receive a reply before going to print.