Outgoing Christchurch City Council chief executive Tony Marryatt racked up nearly $9000 on his ratepayer-funded credit card in the last year, including more than $120 on two visits to the bawdy Hooters restaurant in the United States.

Figures released to The Press under the Official Information Act show Marryatt twice visited the restaurant chain in Phoenix, Arizona, famous for its young busty waitresses. He was there on a council managers' conference a year ago.

Cr Tim Carter, who chairs the council's audit and risk committee and often signed off credit card reports from senior staff, said he was "struggling to understand how spending money at a Hooters bar was council business". Mayoral candidate Lianne Dalziel has also called for more transparency on council spending.

SUPPLIED RACK IT UP: Hooters girls in a photo from the website of a Hooters bar in central Phoenix, Arizona, close to the Sheraton Hotel where Christchurch City Council chief executive Tony Marryatt stayed for a conference. His expenses included payments to Hooters.

Hooters is a US chain of restaurants known for its attractive young waitresses in revealing outfits. The name is a play on the company's owl logo and American slang for female breasts.

Carter wanted to know who approved the report that included the Hooters spending. "If I was presented with a set of accounts that included that kind of spending, I would be asking some pretty serious questions about it."

It also prompted Dalziel to sound a warning to council staff on their credit card spending habits, saying she wanted to see all council spending regularly disclosed.

"I want to bring in a culture of openness into everything we do."

Marryatt's procurement (P) card spending figures for the period between September 1 2012 and 2013 showed he spent $8994.37, mostly on taxis and various conferences.

Marryatt, who often travelled to the US on council business, was in Phoenix attending the four-day International City/County Management Association annual conference.

He visited the Phoenix Hooters restaurant twice during the conference, spending $49.69 on October 7 and then $74.60 four days later.

The figures showed he was by far the biggest spender in a group of 10 that included Mayor Bob Parker and senior executives. The group spent a combined $26,667.66 on rates-funded credit cards in the same year.

Other significant spends in the past year included $1300 to attend a Society of Local Government managers conference in September 2012 and a $289.70 bill for a meal at Christchurch restaurant Saggio di Vino with his partner and Parker and his wife, Joanna, on June 12 this year.

A further three transactions were put on his P card after he was put on leave in July this year - three taxi journeys in Wellington that cost a total of $113.20.

Marryatt did not return calls yesterday.