Parents are tired of walking their children to primary school every day, only to hide their eyes from the lewd adults-only shops lining the street.
Every morning, hundreds of parents take their children to school, but for those whose children attend Liverpool Public Primary School in Sydney’s southwest, the journey is less than pleasant.
Along the road to the school is a shopping area filled with retail stores that are not very child-friendly, including massage parlors, adult stores, and a methadone clinic.
“As soon as I enrolled my kids in this school, it hit me right away,” one concerned parent told A Current Affair on Thursday night.
A grandmother, who has been taking her children and grandchildren to the same primary school for four decades, is tired of exposing young children to such lewd vendors every morning.
“It’s not pleasant walking up and down here,” he said. “I don’t think it’s a good place for them to have brothels… I think they should be somewhere else.”
It’s an awkward topic to discuss if kids bring it up on the way to school.
‘If you ask me: “What is that store, Mom?”, what should I answer? another mother asked. “I actually don’t know.”
Parents have complained about the string of adults-only stores near Liverpool Public Primary School in Sydney’s south-west (Image from A Current Affair)
Neighbors have asked for the closure of businesses. Image: A Current Affair
Despite an outcry from locals and demands to close bawdy shops, Liverpool mayor Ned Mannoun said his “hands are tied” and the responsibility will fall to the state government.
Legislation passed in 2008 banned all seedy establishments in the area, but businesses that opened and operated there before the ban have a legal right to stay.
“We’ve been trying to get rid of them for years,” the mayor told the Channel Nine program.
“We need the state government to change the legislation so that those buildings and those uses are subject to reassessment as time goes on.”
Speaking to NewsWire, a spokesperson for the NSW Department of Education said that while they can fight a pub opening around the corner from a primary school, they can’t do anything about shops just for adults in the area.
Parents and grandparents are embarrassed to accompany children through the stores. Image: A Current Affair
There are endless smut shops in the area. Image: A Current Affair