CHARGES DENIED

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 65, Issue 193, 29 May 1945, Page 6

CHARGES DENIED

REPORTED SALE OF DREGS. HEARING OF LICENSING COMMISSION. (P.A.) AUCKLAND. May 28. Further .‘illegalions of tin* resale of beer dregs by certain hotels in Auckland were made in evidence given by two former barmen before the Royal Commission on Licensing. The licensees and several barmen of two hotels gave evidence denying the use of dregs. Spencer R. Ellie said he had worked as a barman in three Auckland hotels. He had no complaints about two of them. While he was working for about three weeks at the Carlton Club Hotel., Newmarket, during 1942, slops were gathered from the drip trays and glasses after closing time every night, and poured back into the barrel for resale. Witness said he could not say if the dregs were used on the licensee’s instructions. There was an average of from six to eight gallons of dregs put back every night. On a Saturday night he had seen IS gallons put back. Ernest C. Foote, licensee of Ihe Carlton Club Hotel, said there was no truth, in the allegations. Ellis had been, on the recommendation of the head barman, dismissed for inefficiency. The witness had never received any complaints about his beer. Four barmen from Foote’s hotel also gave evidence in rebuttal. Robert Dunne, now serving in the armed forces, said he was a barman in the Edinburgh Castle Hotel for about six months in 1941. Ho confirmed all the allegations of selling dregs which had been made by the witness, Manderson, against this hotel at a previous sitting. Collecting and putting dregs back for sale had been done every night he was on duty. He had once been reprimanded by one barman for throwing out slops. The licensee was often present when the slops were put back. George M. Read, licensee of the Edinburgh Castle Hotel, said there was no truth in the allegations. This was the second time charges against his hotel had been made before the Commission. £ T am beginning to sense some form of victimisation against me, and it is not fair,” said witness. Five barmen at the last witness’s hotel in 1941 denied that dregs had ever been put back for resale by them. ,

Officer Explains Evidence. To clarify certain evidence he had given in Wellington, and which had been quoted by counsel during crossexamination of another witness in Auckland last week, P. W. Lindeman, of the Department of Agriculture, appeared before the Commission this morning. The witness said that according to the typescript of the evidence he was recorded as saying that in the Henderson and Waikato districts winemakers should not be allowed to carry on owing to the unsuitable climatic conditions. What he said was that in these districts they would not be able to carry on, owing to the unfavourable climatic conditions, without the addition of sugar. To a question, the witness said the addition of sugar was not peculiar to New Zealand, but was a recognised practice in a number of overseas wine-making countries, including France and Portugal. Continuing, the witness said that Mr Hardie Boys, for the New Zealand Alliance, had suggested that the difference between the figures presented by the Customs Department and those presented by the witness regarding the consumption and sale of wine in the Dominion showed a leakage which might have gone to the slygi'og trade. The witness had ascertained from the Customs Department that ils figures related only to the gallonage withdrawn from bond, and did not include local manufacture. The witness ridiculed a suggestion Unit lie had promised any member of the Viticulturists’ Association a better allowance of sugar if lie joined the New Zealand Wine Council. He agreed that the wine industry in the Dominion was in a, deplorable condition, but did not agree that the industry had gone back in the last 10 years. Large sums had now been expended by winemakers, and the results of these would show in the future.