TRADING ON SATURDAY

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27201, 19 November 1953, Page 3

TRADING ON SATURDAY

ORIGIN OF PRACTICE IN NEW BRIGHTON

LITIGATION SINCE AMALGAMATION

Six years after. 17 New Brighton shops were firsf granted partial exemption from awards, enabling them to open for business on Saturday. the expansion of the shopping facilities in the suburb shows no sign of abating. Four months ago 10 shops were under construction; at present eight are beiiig built, and four or five are projected. In the last month or two seven shops have been finished. Saturday opening at New Brighton is causmg some concern to retailers in the central shopping area of Christchurch, some of whom feel that they are losing business to the New Brighton shops because of the facilities for week-end shopping at the seaside suburb. The issue was discussed by the executive of the CanterburyWestland Retailers’ Association last evening, but no statement on the outcome of the meeting was available. The origin of Saturday trading in New Brighton was in the days of the old New Brighton borough. As a borough, New Brighton was a separate district for the purposes of the Shops and Offices Act and observed its holiday on a Wednesday. When New Brighton joined the city in 1941 this independence was preserved and Wednesday was still observed as a holiday. °

Litigation Commenced Some five years later the Department of Labour notified New Brighton employers that they were committing breaches of their respective awards, which forbade Saturday trading. This initiated a series of Court actions, judgment on the first of which was given in June, 1947. Seventeen unopposed applications for exemption from parts of the appropriate awards were granted. The businesses concerned were retailers, fish shops, hairdressers and tobacconists, and butchers. Applications by grocers and delicatessen proprietors, which were opposed, were refused by the Magistrate, Mr G. G. Chisholm.

In 1949, Laings Grpceries, Ltd., New Brighton, sought partial exemption from the closing hours imposed by the Grocers’ Assistants and Drivers’ Union award. In granting the application, Mr F. F. Reid, S.M., said he considered exemption would not unfairly affect the business of any other shops and he was satisfied that granting the application was in the public interest. Originally a seaside and week-end resort, New Brighton was now a large residential suburb, with a permanent population of 6000 or 7000, the majority of whom worked in or around Christchurch and travelled a considerable distance each working day, said Mr Reid. Were it- not for the provisions of the award the applicant would be closed on Wednesdays and open on Saturdays, as were all . other shops in New Brighton, except the butchers and chemists. Wages for Saturday Work In 1950, Laings Groceries, Ltd., was proceeded against for an alleged breach of the Grocers’ Assistants’ Award. For the Inspector of Awards, who instituted proceedings, it was claimed that any assistants employed on a Saturday must, by the terms of the award, receive double time in addition to the ordinary rate, even if the time worked was not in excess of 40 hours a week.

The defendant firm’s counsel pointed out that the firm had been granted a partial exemption from Saturday closing at the end of 1949. If the exemption did not carry with it the right to employ assistants at ordinary rates of pay it would largely be rendered nugatory and would discriminate strongly against the employer of labour, compared with thu one-man shop, which could carry on business without any extra payment for staff, it was claimed. After legal argument was heard in chambers,- the Department of Labour elected to be non-suited, and judgment was entered accordingly. The Minister of Labour (Mr W. Sullivan) has said that there are no grounds for conducting a poll .on Saturday opening. It has been claimed that this announcement resulted, in the sudden increase in the number of shops in New Brighton, but the trend was in evidence before the Ministerial statement.

Since 1950 many applications for exemption, total or partial, from various awards, have been made in the Courts to enable New Brighton businesses to trade on Saturday. The latest application, to be heard on November 25, is by a Christchurch departmental store, which owns premises at 34-38 Seaview road. A-branch of a Greymouth firm of retailers has already opened at New Brighton, and one other Christchurch shop has plans for opening a branch in the suburb.

Rapid Population Growth No other Christchurch suburb, can match the recent development of New Brighton’s shopping facilities, but Saturday trading, in the opinion of the president of the New Brighton District Businessmen’s Association (Mr J. W. Hulme) is only partly responsible for this development. Since 1946 (when Mr Reid gave the permanent population of the suburb as 6000 or 7000) the population had expanded rapidly, said Mr Hulme yesterday. He thought there would now be more than 10,000 residents in the former borough. Asked what proportion of Saturday shoppers would be New Brighton residents, Mr Hulme said he was not in a position to answer the question, but some shopkeepers had told him they recognised about half of their Saturday customers as local residents. There was every justification for Saturday trading in New Brighton to cater for the demands of visitors, Mr Hulme claimed.

New Brighton possessed one of the best suburban shopping areas in the South Island, and his association would do everything in its power to retain the right of local shopkeepers to trade on Saturday, he concluded.