THE 12-OZ CUSTOMER IS NOT WELCOME IN BARS

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25394, 17 January 1948, Page 6

THE 12-OZ CUSTOMER IS NOT WELCOME IN BARS

BEER

When a customer in either a public or a private bar in a Christchurch hotel calls for a handle of beer, he is legally entitled to be served with a 12oz measure. He is a lucky man who obtains that measure without insisting on it. Publicans have, over the years, completely removed all 12oz handles or had them filed down to hold no more than lOoz or now keep only a few 12oz glasses or handles on the shelves in case the legal measure is requested by a patron. And, of course, there have been breakages and thefts. The publican profits. The customer pays a price which was fixed for 12oz, not for lOoz, 9oz, or Boz, which hotels serve as “long beers” or the equivalent of handles. Since the measures sold for 7d vary so widely and some hotels refuse even on demand to produce a 12oz container, it is obvious that the Price Investigation Tribunal has not policed the agreement made by the publicans, when beer prices were increased, that 12oz handles would be available in every hotel in tt\e metropolitan area of Christchurch. For more than eight years now the publicans, contrary to their undertaking, have pleased themselves about the size of the measures to be made available. Some attempt to justify the sale of handles of only ICoz by stating that they give a “shout,” a practice which also, by a decision in .1939. was to cease. Only one hotel in Christchurch makes up to its public bar patrons for cutting down the size of handles to lOoz. It charges 6d and does not “shout”; for the customer, lOoz for 6d is slightly dearer beer than 12oz for 7d. Customs vary in different hotels on “shouting” practice. Having paid 7d for measures less than the price was fixed for casuals are generally lucky if the house stands them one after they have drunk four or five, while the m4n who walks into a bar’and calls for a handle loses onefifth of the amount for which he has Pa More than price control in the liquor business was needed, said Mr M. Moohan, Parliamentary Undersecretary to the Minister -of Finance, when discussing beer measures in the House of Representatives. A proper system of standardisation was needed. The Price Tribunal, he said, laid down a price of 7d for a 12oz glass of beer, “which gave a 50 per cent, profit, but the 12oz glass disappeared, and we had a lOoz glass, which gave an 80 per cent, profit. Then the Boz glass came along, giving a profit of 125 per cent. Next came the,7oz glass, with 148 per cent, profit, and then followed the soz glass, giving 261 per cenu profit.” Disappearance of Handles

In some hotels in Christchurch the “long ones” to-day are long only in their narrow, waisted shape, not at all in capacity; and the measures of beer served to those who do not insist on a genuine measure at the profit margin allowed by the Price Tribunal must, in the aggregate, lift the publican’s percentage on his total sales far higher. A good deal of evidence about the rapid disappearance of 12oz handles from hotels was submitted to the Royal Commission on Licensing; and the commission put on record its opinion that the Price Tribunal, which had been charged with taking “an unduly favourable attitude towards the trade,” should have seen to it that the order fixing the price of beer was exhibited in bars. *Tn the absence of evidence to the contrary, there is good ground for saying that the trade in the main cities was able generally to charge 7d for a lOoz handle,” reported the commission. “We think, therefore, that the tribunal failed to fix the price in the four main cities on the basis of a handle that was always available.” The commission also heard the complaint that the tribunal had fixed a price without obtaining sufficient information on the profits of brewery and hotel companies and without taking steps “on its own account” to ensure that a 12oz handle would actually be available if asked for. A test of the response in Christchurch hotels to the request for a 12oz handle or glass of beer produced mixed results. In fixing the price for a 12oz handle in Christchurch, the Price Tribunal did not distinguish between public and private bars; it was not even asked to do so. However, most Christchurch publicans have their own rules and, notwithstanding their eight-year-old agreement with the Price Tribunal, they look coldly on customers who ask, for 12oz handles of beer in private bars. When I visited 18 hotels m one day, some bartenders flatly refused a handle, some offered smaller measures, some tolerantly hunted for 12oz handles, and some at once and cheerfully served the full legal measure in glasses from sparse stocks on and under the shelves. “At Expense of Public” While the Royal Commission did not for a moment entertain the suggestion that the Price Tribunal had consciously favoured the trade, it criticised the tribunal for not having taken steps to control liquor prices and measures, a failure by which the trade “probably reached an undue financial benefit at the expense of the public.” Four months have passed since the commission presented its report; yet beer drinkers in Christchurch are still paying 7d for a measure Which, in the mam, is smaller than that on which the Price Tribunal based its fixed price. Control over beer measures—and therefore prices—is not genuinely exercised by the Price Tribunal. r Tf the control of prices had been more effective, we do not think the goodwills of hotel properties would have Beared as they did during the war period,” comthe Royal Commission. T he war ended two years and five months ago; but the condition which the trade assured the Price Tribunal would be introduced as the basis for the fixing of prices—the 12oz handle —is generally inoperative. The drinker • ° hkes a handle has fared badly since 1939. The price has gone up and tne size of the measures down. Only the publican can be really happy. Percentage profits have been edged up by the devices of filing the handles down discarding legitimate 12oz handles, and making available in the pars all shapes of glasses, much below the 12oz canacity. “We have made inquiries from the vu^ eta n y °. f l he c . ant erbury Licensed Victuallers Association and he says mat as far as he is aware 12oz handles sa j£ in Private bars in all hotels in the Christchurch Metropolitan area on request,” wrote Mr H. T, Wise, a member of the Price Tribunal

[Written lor “The Press.”] [By a Special Correspondent.]

in December, 1939. If the inforrrmtion was correct Then, it is not correct now, as the following “handle-by-handle” description of a search I conducted, with a companion after three hotel calls, will show. “In the public bar,” was the curt reply of the barman in the private Ear of the first hotel. Reminded that the 12oz measure must be given when demanded, he loftily argued that that did not apply to private bars.

The same answer was given at the next hotel. To test the measure in the public bar, we walked down the alleyway on to the street and entered the bar. The barman from the private bar had left his two customers to advise the barman in the public bar that some person might spring on him the caddish trick of asking for a twelve; and as soon as I placed 7d on the counter and asked for a 12oz handle, he brought one out. Only a few handles were in the bar.

“Sorry, sir, I can’t give you a handle but I can give you 120 z,” said the barman in the saloon bar of the third hotel. When I said cautiously that I wanted to pay only 7d, he replied: “Of course, for 7d.” He pulled beer into a small handle and a “pony” glass. Ignoring the demand for a 12oz handle, a barman in the fourth hotel turned the beer into a long and exceedingly narrow-waisted glass. “That’s not a 120 z,” I said as he placed the first glass on the counter. “It’s as long as 120 z,” he replied. I refused to pay for the short measure and was waved cheerily off the premises by the barman.

Four brown glasses, holding 12os each, were available in the next private bar. If a few more customers nsd demanded the full measure, glass supplies would have had to be rushed from the public bar. The barman remarked that he had a few 12oz glasses but was not often asked for them, as the drinkers did not “like them too big.” “You ,can get it in the public bar —not here,” answered the barman in the sixth hotel. Only a partition divided the private and public bars. This hotel lost Is 2d worth of custom. Doubling back towards the Square, we called into a spotlessly clean private bar, one of the most neatly deco-« rated in the city. The barman was not only courteous but honest. “I don’t know if these areT2.’s,” he remarked doubtfully as he filled up the handler An experienced handler of handles, I saw at a glance that the measure was less. The carman slipped through the door into the adjoining public bar and returned with another handle. The beer in his measure was poured into the regulation 12-ouncer. The tide was well out. , . x Not a handle, tiny or big, was to be seen in the private bar of the next hotel. “You will have to go into the public bar for a 12-ouncer,” said the barman. “I have only 10-ouncers here.” No business was done. “Last 12 Just Broken” When the Is 2d was proffered with a demand for 12oz handles at a nearby hotel, the barman busily produced two glasses, claiming that they were the same as handles in measure. His claim was challenged and from the further end of the bar he produced a handle. “But that is not a 12,” I said. “No, it’s a 10,” he candidly replied. “A joker just broke the last of the 12’s.” We had a laugh—but no beer. Without hesitation, the barman in the private bar of the tenth hotel stretched to a high rack and produced two 12oz glasses from the stock of three. The beer was nicely cooled and the measure all that was expected, so the patronage which the other two hotels elected to spurn for the sake of two ounces was given this hotel. The eleventh hotel was also prepared against the risk of a customer’s knowing what he wanted and what he ws» entitled to. The risk was not rated as a high multiple risk. There were only three 12oz glasses in the private bar. The publican said he had a big stock of handles before the war, but the stock had disappeared gradually as he sold handles to other publicans. Perhaps somebody now has s handsome secret stock of large handles; for they are rare sights in the hotels. “Go into the other bar,” said the barman in a private bar in an industrial and shopping area- “There are only 10’s in here. We shout in here." We whisked quickly round to the public bar, and the barman from the private bar whisked through the partition and pulled two 12oz handles. TWo of the other four patrons were drinking the full-sized measures. At the hotel on the opposite corner 12oz handles were Drought out as soon as they were asked for. Four other men were sipping their beer in the sunlight pouring through the open windows. Two nad big handles and two 12oz glasses. An old man called in at the adjoining public bar and demanded a "pint, a measure which was being killed off quickly by pub-' licans before the war. “We haven’t a pint, but you can have 120 z,” the barman told him. Finding the Containers “Not here,” answered the barman in the private bar of a hotel not 200 yards away, when he was asked for 12oz handles. He gave us a quizzical, suspecting look and made up his mind. “But I may be able to find you tWo,” he said; and from a shelf under the far end of his bar he produced his total stock of 12oz handles—two of them. A thin partition divided the private and public bars of a' hotel in the eastern part of the city and also divided the measures. “There are none here,” said the barman. “But I may be able to find you one ” He popped into the public bar and popped back with two 12oz glasses. Tne required measure, in glasses, was promptly served at the sixteenth public house, two blocks away: but there were few of these glasses. Clearly the licensee expected his customers to be more generous to him than to themselves. < A worried look came over the face of the barman in the private bar of a hotel a block nearer tne Square. “We haven’t one here,” he said as he produced a long glass. “That’s not a 12," I said. That irritated him, as he showed when he said, “You’ll get one in the public bar.” As we wanted one in the private bar, we pocketed our H pence and headed into the warm nor’wester for the eighteenth hostelry, 300 yards or so away. The barman there promptly filled two clear white glasses (old stock) with 12 ounces of Dunedin beer. Quite a sizeable rush of 12oz drinkers could have been handled in that bar.