EX-LICENSEE'S VIEWS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 153, 30 June 1945, Page 7

EX-LICENSEE'S VIEWS

discriminatM, ALLEGED _______ *"»**»». TROUBLE OVER LICENSES P.A. ROTORUA, this day. Evidence on licensing coifimittees, alleging discrimination between the treatment of private owners and big liquor companies, was given yesterday by James Collins Gleeson, former hotel licensee, before the Royal Commission on Licensing. Quoting from his own experience, he said that he had financed the Ambassadors Hotel, Auckland, and had great trouble in securing the license. He had found that there were options over many alternative corner sites for the transfer of the license of the Thames Hotel to the new building, and met opposition in his requests for a license, yet when the license for the Anchor Hotel had been shifted to the Cargen there had been no opposition.

When quoting the then deputychairman of the Auckland Licensing Committee, who told him he was not going to get a license because there was "bribery and corruption." Witness was told by Mr. Justice Smith that this must come not before the commission but another Court

Witness said that 35 years ago two privately-owned hotels had been closed under reduction by the Onehunga Licensing Committee, while four others owned by a combine had been allowed to remain in the borough of Onehunga. "Is there a distinction?" asked witness. The same thing applied to the shifting of Prince's Gate from Waihi to Rotorua. Members of the Licensing Committee received work from the removal and building of hotels and the carriage of goods. He submitted that licenses would be less apt to be "arranged" if they were granted by local bodies. There was little interest in licensing committees unless the temperance movement put up candidates. Original owners should have the option of taknig up licenses formerly held by them.

The age of hotels was referred to, witness naming the Prince of Wales, in Hobson Street, Auckland, which "hadn't had a boarder for 50 years." The profits were £300 to £400 a week and no provision was made for accommodation. Profits from Rotorua hotels, equally aged, had been £20,000 a year over forty years ago. In three hotels in Rotorua a bottle of beer could not be bought over the counter, it had to be bought by the glass, and the licensee got 3/6 a bottle. In Auckland the charge for a quart bottle was .1/9.