In the past 18 months, more than 40 poles have been bent, buckled or broken and it has cost local taxpayers thousands of dollars to replace.
The reason: the signs, according to local councillors, are popular with local ladies of the night who have been using them as props to advertise their athleticism in the hope of attracting punters.
Local councillor Donna Lee says the culprits use them like stripper poles in a dance club.
“The poles are part of their soliciting equipment and they often snap them,” she told the local paper, The Telegraph. “Some of the prostitutes are big, strong people.”
Her comments have, however, been slammed by Wendy Traskos, founder of the US Pole Dancing Federation, who says the Kiwis are jumping to conclusions about the pole dancers when describing them as prostitutes.
Ms Traskos says they are more likely practitioners of the fine art of “urban pole dancing” in which people take what they have learned in clubs or gyms and take their techniques out onto the street, using street signs, wooden poles or scaffolding.
The problem, she reckons, is not the dancers but the poles.
“What exactly do they make their signs out of anyway in New Zealand? Tissue paper?” he asked The Huffington Post. “Maybe the city needs to rethink what they make signs out of, if a 60-plus kilo woman is going to destroy them by doing acrobatics.”