News

The University has confirmed that they have no plans to buy popular student nightspot The Monkey Bar and turn it into a cutting-edge research lab for the only part of the University that anyone in power really cares about; the Medical School.
Monkey Bar has been listed for sale on popular auction website Trade Me since the middle of December, but due to inertia and technological backwardness Critic only found this out last Wednesday.
 

Critic immediately contacted the University to find out what type of Medical School-related building they intended to turn the former church into. Jaws dropped all around the office when, in a tersely worded email, the University officially informed us that they had no plans whatsoever to purchase the building.
 

Commentators around Dunedin (or around our office, anyway) have been left wondering what Monkey Bar must have done to be blacklisted like this, as the University has in the past snapped up bars within any proximity to campus faster than a Castle St resident shotgunning a Sogo.
 

Speculation is rife that the bar is simply too good to shut down, with many senior staff members of the University rumoured to be regulars at the edgy nightclub famed for its cutting-edge dance music.
 

It’s not just University staff who are highly appreciative of the Monkey Bar as an entertainment venue. One online reviewer, awarding the bar a maximal five stars, stated “A must go to club if you live in or are just visiting Dunedin. Amazing music and building (I think a converted old church!!). Bartenders are great too :)”. How the reviewer managed to deduce that the building used to be a church is unknown, but the use of the double exclamation mark has persuaded Critic to relocate the next office function to the Monkey.
 

Critic attempted to find out the asking price for the establishment, as the Trade Me advert merely stated “price on application”. Critic rang up the realtor to find out the price, neatly covering our tracks by pretending to be a New York investor with the improbable name Clint Richardson. Unfortunately the canny estate agent refused to divulge the price without first engaging in some email exchanges. Critic, conscious of our print deadline, declined to be dragged into a vortex of communication and instead simply speculates that Monkey Bar is worth approximately seven Norwegian kroner.
 

If you wish to make an offer for the Monkey Bar in order to acquire it as the foundation for a business empire consisting of burger joints, construction companies and bars, you can find the Trade Me listing by searching for listing # 341365783. The fact that you would then be known as the “Monkey Brothers (or Sisters)” should be incentive enough for anyone.