LIQUOR TRADE CONTROL

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23587, 14 March 1942, Page 6

LIQUOR TRADE CONTROL

WORK OF “VIGILANCE COMMITTEE ” INSTRUCTIONS GIVEN LICENSEES (P.A.) AUCKLAND, March 13. The checking of abuses in the sale and consumption of liquor in the Auckland Metropolitan Area is at in a series of decisions made as the result of several conferences the heads of the licensed trade in the Auckland province and Canon R. G. Goats, vicar of St. Matthew’s, who has been appointed chairman of a special vigilance committee set up for the purpose of seeing that the decisions are effective. Specific instructions, which have been issued to licensees throughout the metropolitan area, will operate as from to-morrow. . . According to these instructions after-hour trading will be tolerated. All hotels must rigidly observe the legal trading hours. All service of liquor to women in bars and lounges must cease at 5 p.m. each day. What have been known as women’s bars will cease to function as such. These instructions are based on the formula-of action arrived at by’ a special meeting called to create machinery to deal with the sale of alcoholic liquor from the manufacturer to the public and the checking of the abuse of its sale and consumption. Various general resolutions were adopted to provide the necessary formula. According to these, necessary steps are able to be taken , for, the rigid observance of the law, particularly as it touches after hour and Sunday trading, for a reduction to a minimum of drinking by Maoris on licensed premises and the strictest supervision of sales that might be intended for Maori consumption off the premises, the prevention, as far as possible, of indiscriminate meeting of men and women in lounges, etc., the complete abolition of excessive drinking by women, and the elimination of excessive drinking by servicemen, together with further steps to prevent the sale of liquor to servicemen to carry away from the premises. For the purpose of giving effect to these resolutions the conference decided to send copies of them to all licensees in the province, to the United Licensed Victuallers’ Association of New Zealand, and. to advise all bar staffs as to their responsibilities. Canon Coats, who announced the various decisions, said prompt steps had been taken to implement them. He had been greatly impressed by the deep consideration given to the problem of controlling the sale of liquor to Maoris in hotels and by the assurance given him that no Maori would be permitted to carry liquor off the premises. The strictest supervision of the bars would be maintained by the licensees themselves.