LIQUOR SUPPLY

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 85, 11 April 1945, Page 2

LIQUOR SUPPLY

SYSTEM IN INVERCARGILL TRADE DELEGATES CRITICAL P.A. DUNEDIN, Tuesday. During the past week a Canter-bury-Otago delegation of two members of the New Zealand Licensed Victuallers' Association visited Invercargill to examine, on behalf of that organisation, outward manifestations of the policy of the Licensing Trust. Interest in the conclusions drawn by this delegation lies chiefly in the impression gained that the experimental trading at present being conducted by the trust is, in general, alien to popular fancy and inclination and inimical to the interests of the - licensed trade. Mr. A. A. Paape, president of the Otago Licensed Victuallers' Association, who was a member of the delegation, said that personal observation, supported by the comments of a considerable section of the local community, had convinced him that restoration had achieved little for the city of Invercargill, and threatened to do more harm to the licensed trade than any of the abuses and anomalies that had existed there previously. He said there was no question that the general preference was for "vertical" drinking at the bar, rather than for what he termed "flat out" drinking at tables. This was shown in the trust's establishments by the universal habit of making straight for the bar. The view was emphatically expressed that many people in Invercargill regarded the whole business of licensed trading in their city with distrust, an attitude which was doubly unfortunate at a time when opponents of the trade were not only searching for talking poinds against hotels, but had a Royal Commission, before which their strictures and criticisms could be placed. Mr. Paape said that the trust was not providing a community service, but rather catering for a very limited section of the public. What was, in effect, a golden opportunity to incorporate in the trust the best features of private ownership and control had been lost, and the public generally was disappointed and disillusioned. The public desire was clearly for licensed trade in the hands of private enterprise, with the element of personal responsibility and interest, which was one of the greatest safeguards of the general hotel system in this country.