CLOSING OF WEST COAST HOTEL

Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26756, 13 June 1952, Page 8

CLOSING OF WEST COAST HOTEL

. KAMAKA LICENCE SUSPENDED (From Our Own Reporter) GREYMOUTH, June 12. The first West Coast hotel to close since the Licensing Control Commission sat on the West Coast will be the Kamaka Hotel, about 10 miles north of Greymouth. The hotel will close its doors to the public on Monday, June 30, for the last time. The hotel is one of two district hotels the licensees of which told the commission at Greymouth last November they would surrender their licences. Advice has been received at Greymouth that the surrender of the Kamaka licence had been accepted'by the commission. It was stated to-day that it was expected that the surrender of the licence of the Blackball Hotel would be accepted before the meeting of the Westland Licensing Committee at .Hokitika next week, but, until official information of this is received, an application for the renewal of the licence has been filed with the committee.

Though the licences of both hotels are being surrendered voluntarily, and not cancelled by any action of the commission, it is understood that both are entitled, as holders of licences compulsorily cancelled, to seek compensation.

No definite date has been set for the return of the commission to Greymouth, but it is now expected that it will probably be some time in September. The commission will then hear the cases for the hotels on the West Coast whose licences are to be reviewed, as a result of the commission’s preliminary findings. The commission indicated that Greymouth’s 21 hotels should be reduced by five, and named seven as being required to show cause why their licences should not be revoked.

The commission in September may also hear representations in respect of compensation for the two hotels whose licences were voluntarily surrendered. A third visit will probably be required to settle compensation claims in respect of any hotels which may lose their licences after the September session.