GROCERS' HOURS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 290, 7 December 1945, Page 7

GROCERS' HOURS

REPLY TO DAIRIES TRADERS DESIRE EQUALITY Full agreement with the Auckland Master Grocers' Association that businesses which sold the same kind of goods should be required to observe the same trading hours was expressed to-day by Mr. A. C: Bellamy, president of the Auckland Chain Grocery Stores Association. "The sweeping statement by Mr. C. H. Crawford, president of the Auckland Dairy and Confectionery Retailers' Association, that the grocers as a body have let the public down is not correct," said Mr. Bellamy. "The grocery chains have continuously opposed, and will continue to oppose, Saturday closing, as they believe that their own and their employees' interests can be served only by catering in a reasonable manner for the requirements of the public." „. . The grocers were not seeking a monopoly of the lines they handled, as the dairies appeared to be, he added, but they held to the view that there should be equality in trading. He declared that there was more than a grain of truth in the grim joke that a dairy was a business that sold everything but milk during the week-end. Dairy Lines Not in Dispute There was no reference in the Shops and Offices Act to selling of honey, said Mr. R. M. Barker, secretary of the Auckland Master Grocers' Association, replying to Mr. Crawford's second statement. Yet Mr. Crawford held that honey was a dairy line. Further, the sale of confectionery and sweetmeats was defined as being the business of a confectioner, while bread and pastry were allotted to the bakers. ' Apparently the dairies wished to retain for themselves the right to "pirate" these lines from the confectioners and bakers, and yet deny the grocers the right to sell them, added Mr. Barker. But the Grocers' Association did not mind what lines the dairies sold, provided they complied with the law regarding closing hours. Grocers who sold patent medicines had to abide by chemists' hours, and those who sold fruit and vegetables, by fruiterers' hours. After-hour Trading by Dairies

The fact that the grocers proposed to observe a five-day week would in no way affect the right of dairies .to. sell butter, eggs or cheese on Saturdays, and therefore the public would be able to decide when and where to buy these lines. It was incorrect to say that the grocers were afraid that their sales of butter, eggs, dried.milk, honey, cheese and biscuits would be affected. If they had such a fear they would be opposed to Saturday closing. Thev also repudiated the suggestion that housewives would suffer because of five-day shopping. Instances had been cited where an occasional, grocer did not "play the game" by his fellow traders, said Mr. Barker, but the trade was not to be condemned for that reason. The grocers did not hold against all dairy proprietors the indiscretion of a Ponsonby dairy in announcing that tobacco would be sold only to registered butter customers, or a promise to supply four packets of cigarettes a week as an inducement to transfer a butter registration. The present release of canned fruit had no relation to butter registrations', and ■people were entitled to receive i supplies from their regular grocers. The main point of the controversy was whether or not after-hour trading by dairies existed, and Mr. Crawford had admitted that it did.