HOTEL CLOSING HOURS

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25128, 8 March 1947, Page 7

HOTEL CLOSING HOURS

COMMENT IN CHURCH MAGAZINE

“It is difficult for any reasonable person to see why the business of selling liquor should be expected to be treated as worthy of special consideration in the matter of early closing,” states a leading article in this week’s issue of the “Outlook.” The article refers to the recent poll taken in New South Wales to determine the hours of closing of hotels.

“Other businesses which deal in commodities much more essential to the wellbeing of the community are forced to close at an even earlier hour than 6 o’clock each day/’ the article continues. “It is surely more reasonable to demand that women* who have the care of households, should be given longer hours for securing such necessities as, say, butter, than it would be to give those facilities to a business which deals in a commodity which, to say the best for it, is a luxury. “Those who further the proposal for extended hours in New South Wales and those who are most concerned in encouraging similar proposals in New Zealand, are not concerned with the manners or the habits of their customers. Their main interest is in’ the turnover of their highly profitable business. Extended hours would mean more liquor would be sold. They have publicly delcared, of course, that the contrary would be true, that there would be less drinking if the hours of sale were extended. Such philanthropists they are that they are willing to bear the increased cost of keeping hotel bars open for a longer period in order to reduce the sale of their commodity! Such a claiin may fool some of the people some of the time.

“If any person wishes to discover some of the truth of the evil of granting etxended hours for the sale of liquor, he need only read the newspapers of that period in this country when 10 o’clock closing was the law. He will find there complaints that women could not pass by certain corners at night because of the attention of drunken men, strictures of magistrates and judges against those who offended good manners and good citizenship by their drunken orgies. That has largely changed. The sale of alcoholic liquor causes evil and trouble enough under present conditions, but no unbiased, truthful investigator who looked at the facts could do other than acknowledge that the law which enforces the 6 o’clock closing of hotel bars, even although it is often violated by greedy men. has immensely improved the situation.”