LOSS OF HOTEL LICENCES

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 26998, 25 March 1953, Page 10

LOSS OF HOTEL LICENCES

West Coast Claims For Compensation

COMMISSION HEARS EVIDENCE

(From Our Own Reporter) GREYMOUTH, March 24.

Claims for compensation totalling £11,700 were heard by the Licensing Control Commission at Greymouth today. The claims were made in respect of three hotels the licences of which have been declared redundant by the commission and will expire on June 30, 1953.

The Crown claimed that the difference between the total value of the three properties with licences and their value . without licences was £3060.

The amount claimed in respect of each hotel, with the difference between the two Crown valuations in parenthesis, was as follows: Three Mile Hotel (Hou Hou), £3500 (£1060); Junction Hotel (Dillmanstown), £2200 (£250); Commercial Hotel (Ross), £6OOO (£1750, providing the hotel is not rebuilt).

The commission consists of Mr A. M. Goulding, S.M. (chairman), and Messrs B. Barrington and L. C. Nisbet. Mr R. A. Young appears for the Crown.

Today, Mr Young called Mr E. R. Sceats, of the Valuation Department, Wellington, and Mr J. E. Tait, a builder and contractor, of Christchurch, to give evidence on each claim. Three Mile Hotel Mr C. R. McGinley appeared for the Bank of New Zealand (the mortgagee), Westland Breweries. and Griffin and Smith (guarantor of the overdraft), and for the joint owners, William Roy Burns and Veronica Mary LundqAist. Malcolm Edmund Houston, a land agent, of Hokitika, said he valued the furniture and plant as part of the equipment of a licensed hotel at £355 9s 6d. If sold at auction, the furniture and effects would realise only £lBl 13s 6d. The building had a demolition value of £2OO, and the land on which it stood had a value of £l5O. William Burns said in evidence that he paid £3512 for the hotel in 1948. This included about £5OO for the stock and furniture, the stock amounting to £7O. George Franklin Shallcrass, a valuer, said he considered the property might realise £750 if a purchaser were available, but if there was no purchaser available, the property might become a liability. Mr Sceats’s valuation of the property as licensed premises was £1560 (£l5OO for improvements and £6O for the land) and his valuation of the property without a licence £5OO (£440 and £.60) Junction Hotel William A. Barcock said he bought the Junction Hotel (Dillmanstown)-for £2OOO in 1950 and his earnings from the hotel in the last two years were £5 or £6 a week. He was claiming £2200 as compensation for the loss of his licence. Mr Shallcrass said that, without a licence, the property might realise £2OO or £3OO, if a purchaser were available. Mr Sceats’s valuations were: with licence. £660 (buildings £650, leased site £10); without licence £4OO (£4OO, £10). Commercial Hotel The amended claim for compensation for the Commercial Hotel, Ross, was for £6OOO, said Mr A. M. Jamieson. for the owner-licensee, Gordon David Elley. Mr Elley, after leasing the hotel, bought it in 1949. His gross outlay oh the property was £2976 9s 9d. It was subject to three mortgages. He had improved his capital position since 1948 by £2776. Goodwill under the lease was £4OO. Mr Sceats’s estimate of the value of Mr Elley’s leasehold interest in the property as at November, 1952, was, with licence £2250; without licence £5OO. James McDougall, a public accountant, produced figures in support of the claim for £6OOO. The average net ‘profit over the last three years was £1438, he said. „