Chandelier, next door to SPQR, suddenly closed its doors in mid-September. When they swung open again late last month, the interior had been painted bright-white, making the place look much larger – but the stunning chandeliers are thankfully still intact. “It's a place where you can feel good about going to,” Vaughan Aaronjohn (pictured right) tells GayNZ.com. “We're promoting ourselves as a straight-friendly gay bar. We thought there was room for somewhere in town that's a little bit more upmarket. “We'd always liked the name ‘Witch', but it was just a question of timing. We think it evokes good ideas for imagery and history. ‘Witch' is a nice, encompassing kind of name. It's short, it's catchy. You can have lots of parties having fun with the name. Especially with Friday the 13th and Halloween coming up. There's the paganistic sense too, which sits really nicely with gay guys and women as well.” NZAF research recently showed that 45% of New Zealand's out gay men lived in Auckland's central suburbs. “So it made sense for us to open a gay bar,” explains Aaronjohn. The new bar is perfectly aligned to fill the gap left by local bars closed last year - Surrender Dorothy and Hydrant. Aaronjohn's keeping the interior white and bright. “Having a white bar is so different to what everyone else is doing right now,” he explains. “The trend has been for dark spaces. What was really lovely when we opened was that the candles were on and the chandeliers were on low, there was a very soft light and everybody could see each other and felt very comfortable. “We've got a few modifications planned. We're going to move the bar forward from where it is to the current dance floor area, and we're going to move the front doors further back to make more of an outdoor area at the front, for the smokers.” A weekly lesbian night kicks off on the fifth of October. Called ‘Sorceress', it'll be held every Thursday evening. “The idea behind it is to just provide a good, safe, women's space. I know a lot of gay people, be they women or men, like to have definite times to meet, and I know gay bars are dominated by men, so it's nice to have a women's space. But it's not exclusive, the door's always open whoever turns up, that's fine.” Witch is now open at 152 Ponsonby Road, but its official launch party – ‘Lash' - will be held on Friday 13th October 2006. Matt Akersten - 6th October 2006