TOBACCO SALES.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19214, 21 January 1928, Page 10

TOBACCO SALES.

THE NEW LEGISLATION. Mr R. T. Bailey, officer in charge of the Labour Department in Cliristchureh, yesterday made some corrections of published reports regarding last year's amendment of the Shops and Offices Act bearing on the sale of tobacco. According to these reports, the amendment enabled those whose main business was the selling, of smoking requisites to take stepslto compel all other businesses selling : tobacco and cigarettes as a. side-line to close at the same hours as they do themselves under the' regulations. .Actually the application of the amendment is restricted to certain districts of, New Zealand, and is not Dominion-wide, as these reports Would lead one to' believe. Provision.is made in Section 25 of the 1927 amendment that where in any district, .to. which Section 31 of the principal Act applies, a notice is gazetted under Section ! 32 of that Act, pur-v sua.nt to a requisition signed by. not ; less • than two-thirds- of the occupiers': of tobacconist shops in such districts, all other V; ! 'shops ,in such /districts .where smoking requisites are sold shall b© closed at the hour or hours set out. Section 31 of the principal Act sets out the districts to which both the Act and the amendment apply. They are: Auckland, Christchtircn, Dunedin, Gisborne, the town districts of Mangapapa, Invercargill, Nelson, Petone. Lower Hutt. Wanganui, and Wellington.

Section 32 refers* to the closing of the non-tobacconist shops on the requisition of the majority of occupiers of tobacconist shops. !It is understood that the local tobacconists are .now considering the preparation of such a requisition.