Thu, Jun 21, 2001 page24

• Australian town debating future of its brothel bars

  BAREBACK OUTBACK The rough-and-tumble mining town of Kalgoorlie in the red desert of Western Australia is deciding whether to keep its prostitutes going or not

  • REUTERS
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  Welcome ladies and gentlemen to Langtree's 181, Kalgoorlie's premier brothel, purrs Scotty the Sexy Supergran to a group of wide-eyed tourists.

  Step this way to see the "Holden-on-room," where the bed is a mock-up of a Holden automobile. And, ladies, maybe you'd like to buy a virtually silent G-spot tickler in our tourist shop, adds Scotty, a "nearly 60" former prostitute, with a wink.

  Now, if a working brothel is a little too game, have a saunter into the Exchange Hotel's Wild West Saloon where the barmaids, or "skimpies," flash a fair bit of flesh through their bikinis but remain well out of touch behind the beer spigots.

  

  ``Skimpy'' barmaid Nikki poses in front of the Wild West Saloon in Kalgoorlie's Exchange Hotel before an evening shift.

  PHOTO: REUTERS

  A rough-and-tumble mining town in the red desert of Western Australia, Kalgoorlie is all about "blokes, booze and brothels."

  But despite the success of the A$25 (US$13) a head Langtree's brothel tour on Hay Street, and the roaring trade in the "skimpy bars" of Hannah Street, not all the locals are happy with their town's image as the wild, wild west.

  "We don't want to ignore it," says Neta Gill, executive officer of the state-funded Goldfields Tourism Association.

  "However, we want to say there's more. There's history, heritage and mining. It's living history. I mean, people aren't aware that Kalgoorlie is a place you can bring your children."

  Debate over wicked image

  Kalgoorlie, around 600km east of Perth, is embroiled in a lively debate about its future.

  Tourism and industry chiefs who want to clean up its wicked redneck image and promote its turn-of-the-century architecture are pitted against others who believe the "skimpies" and world-renowned brothels are its sole claim to fame.

  Born in the last great Australian gold rush of 1893, when Irish prospector Paddy Hannah stumbled on nuggets on the ground, Kalgoorlie lies on one of the world's richest mineral deposits. Its broad streets were built to allow camel trains to turn.

  The town has 32 pubs to quench the thirst of 30,000 people and when it hits the national news, it's because the police have ordered "skimpies" to cover their buttocks and hang up their G-strings, or because Langtree's brothel carried out a A$3 million refurbishment.

  It's a place of big men, in big four-wheel drive cars, and a huge sky, surrounded by the Australian bush where monster slag heaps rise from the red, brown and purple land.

  But the Goldfields Tourism Association found in a survey that the overwhelming majority of visitors came to see the "Super Pit," Australia's largest opencast gold mine, and to get a whiff of Australian history from the balconied 100-year-old buildings.

  Only 3 percent of tourists mentioned the brothels on Hay Street and the "skimpy bars" as the highlights of their visit.

  As a result, the association has recommended the town stop promoting the "blokes, booze and brothels" aspect of Kalgoorlie in its tourism literature, a view that has won the backing of the Kalgoorlie-Boulder Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

  "We do generally as a population tend to have a pretty good time ... but I don't think that's any reason to label the place as a wild west town," says chamber head Hugh Gallagher.

  Alarm on the wild side

  The calls for a new cleaner image have alarmed the sex industry workers, "skimpy bar" owners and workers who come to Kalgoorlie from the surrounding mines to let off some steam.

  "Well I think they are fools because we've got all the tourists coming because of this," says Scotty, who guides up to four tour groups a day around Langtree's brothel.

  It's the only public brothel tour in the world, she says, and "the whole world is waiting for this."

  In the Exchange Hotel, owner and chartered accountant Ashok Parekh branded "skimpy" critics as do-gooders who wanted to get rid of the one thing that ensured Kalgoorlie a place in tourism guide books and international media reports.

  "What else is there, what are these alternatives?" he asks.

  Like several people in town, the "skimpy bar" owner's vision for Kalgoorlie contemplates an Australian Las Vegas, with licensed casinos bringing back the boom times of the gold rush.

  In the Wild West Saloon, Nikki flitted around the bar in a miner's luminescent waistcoat covering an orange bikini.

  "You'll lose the spirit of Kalgoorlie" if the skimpies go, says the barmaid from the eastern state of Queensland.

  "The big guys, most of them work 12 hours a day, they want to come in here for a couple of hours, have a few drinks, relax, and see a couple of beautiful girls. I don't see any harm in that."

  The big guys themselves are horrified at the prospect of their playground being tamed to improve Kalgoorlie's image.

  "It's ridiculous, I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the skimpies," says miner Chris Thompson.

  What's the fuss?

  Some people wonder why there is a debate at all.

  After all, the brothels on Hay Street are as much a part of Kalgoorlie history as the architecture, originating from tent cities filled with foreign prostitutes who flocked to the gold fields along with the prospectors at the start of the gold rush.

  In fact, Langtree's is such a Kalgoorlie institution that one of its former managers is now a local councillor.

  The "skimpies" sprang out of a miners' tradition of tossing coins at bar maids to get them to show a bit of flesh.

  Kay and Peter Lipman, a retired couple from near Melbourne, came to Kalgoorlie for the Super Pit, not the brothels or bars.

  But the seedy side of town doesn't bother them in the slightest.

  "Kalgoorlie is a bit blokesy," says Kay Lipman. "But from a tourism point of view, the skimpies are part of its history."

  At the end of the day, the last thing anyone in Kalgoorlie wants to do is to wipe out a tourism asset that helps the town weather some of the regular ups and downs of the mining sector.

  If Kalgoorlie stopped being fun, then it wouldn't be Kalgoorlie at all, says miner Ashley Low.

  The state government, while planning to regulate the still illegal brothel industry, is steering well clear of the debate.

  "Kalgoorlie is a colorful town with a colorful history," says Western Australia Police Minister Michelle Roberts.

  "We're not about as a state government to dictate to Kalgoorlie what kind of image their city should have."
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