"TIED" HOTELS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 70, 23 March 1945, Page 3

"TIED" HOTELS

LIQUOR TRADE ISSUE FURTHER QUESTIONS ASKED P.A. WELLINGTON, Thursday. The Licensing Commission was occupied practically all to-day listening to the examination of the UnderSecretary of Justice, Mr. B. L. Dallard, on a statement he had previously submitted. The examination of the Commissioner of Police, Mr. James Cummings, had just started when the proceedings were adjourned until to-morrow. Mr. H. F. O'Leary, counsel for the New Zealand Licensed Victuallers' Association, asked Mr» Dallard if he thought that local option should be abolished where such area formed part of a bigger area which was licensed. Witness replied that this was a matter of Government policy, which might be influenced by recommendations by the commission. Personally he thought the local option ; factor undesirable. There should be* one law for the whole of New Zealand. To Mr. J. D. Willis, counsel assisting the commission, witness said he held the view that it should- be illegal for brewers to own licenses. Mr. F. G. Ycung, a member of the commission: Do you agree that the system of brewers and wine and spirit merchants financing hotel transactions makes it possible for men of small capital to enter the hotel business? Mr. Dallard: Up to a point, but because that is an easy way it does not follow that it is the most desirable. The best hotel in Wellington is financed by a company other than a brewery. _ The Chairman, Mr. Justice Smith: Do you consider each brewery with a tied house or each brewery with tied houses constitutes a monopoly? Mr. Dallard: The beginnings of one. The Chairman: With more than one there is competition?— The experience is that such combinations either fight or come to an arrangement. . . The Chairman: Do you suggest that to-day there is some understanding between competitors?— Not that lam aware of. His Honor said either there was monopoly in the sale of beer or there was not. Effect of High Rents Witness replied that the system of tied houses had a tendency to raise the price of hotel properties and rents. He had heard licensees say that high rents caused after-hour trading. His Honor said that in the absence of specific cases it was a question whether general statements of licensing committee chairmen attached to the statement of a witness were sufficient to justify the inference that competing breweries had so raised rents that licensees were breaking the law. x The Commissioner of Police, Mr. James Cummings, in reply to Mr. F. C. Spratt, New Zealand Alliance, said his main concern was for enforcement of the law as it now stood and for the assistance of any recommendations the commission might see fit to make for improvements in the existing law. The normal establishment of the police force was IGOO, but it was 144 men short and there was 25 per cent more work due to war conditions.