Operators of the Monkey Bar, in the former Hanover St Baptist Church, have been pasting alcohol-promotion posters on the exterior brickwork of the Historic Places Trust category 1-listed building.
Former chairwoman of the New Zealand Historic Places Trust Otago branch Elizabeth Kerr described the advertising this week as an eyesore.
"It's totally inappropriate and unsightly. It's just a great, big, scrappy mess. It's about the stewardship of the building by the tenant and the landlord," she said.
"It's just a slapped-up bad poster job and it's so unthinking. It's on a prominent site and it's a neat precinct of medical school buildings that it's part of and, in terms of vista, it's pretty strong."
Historic Places Trust Otago-Southland area manager Owen Graham said the posters could also damage the 98-year-old brickwork.
"This can have an effect on the building and cause damage and it doesn't sound like it's an ideal thing to be doing," he said.
"We always take the view that someone who owns a heritage building understands that if we have given it recognition for its special features, then it needs to be managed - and that includes the interior and exterior."
The category I listing acknowledges the building is a place of "special or outstanding historical or cultural heritage significance or value".
It was designed by Edmund Anscombe as the first Baptist church in Dunedin and opened in 1912.
However, when the congregation moved to another site in the early 1990s, the building lay unoccupied for several years before being reborn as a series of short-lived restaurants and nightclubs.
Dunedin City Council resource consents manager Alan Worthington said the signage would be investigated.
"It looks like it's probably illegal and we'll be investigating it. It's a scheduled building and we'd be concerned if people are damaging it, even temporarily. Signage can't be displayed on a scheduled building in a way that it's visible from a public place."
The Monkey Bar is managed by Bar Bar Black Sheep Ltd, which also operates the Metro Cafe.
Manager Rob Dale could not be contacted for comment.
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