Notices About Ice-cream In Buses Annoy Trade Journal

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27639, 21 April 1955, Page 8

Notices About Ice-cream In Buses Annoy Trade Journal

"The Press" Special Service

AUCKLAND, April 20. The trade journal the “Neto Zealand Confectioner” has taken umbrage at notices asking passengers not to take ice-cream on to Auckland Transport Board vehicles. A letter from the journal’s editor, alleging a campaign against ice-cream, was received by the board at its meeting this week. The letter asked:— At whose instigatihp was this “attack on ice-cream” begun and was the “propaganda campaign” discussed at a full meeting of the board? How many verbal and written complaints about ice-cream had been re-

ceived from passengers in the last 12 months? How did this compare with comgaints about late running and overading Was it the board’s intention to “take away the children’s rights” to eat icecream when returning from school and when buses were sparsely occupied? The letter said that many readers had asked the journal to ask the board the “purpose of its campaign.” “No such attack on the sale of ice-cream is made by private bus companies

operated in Auckland,” the editor wrote. “Our readers therefore express surprise that a public utility should see fit to use its funds for such a campaign.” The chairman (Mr H. A. Anderson) said the notices were not an attack on ice-cream. The issue had been raised by a member, who mentioned complaints by passengers at damage to clothes caused by ice-creams, and it had been discussed at a full meeting of the board. Permanent records were not kept of all complaints. The third question, about other complaints, was not relevant. Mr Anderson. said he would have thought the time to “go really hostile” would be on the adoption of a by-law —if there was to be one. Complainants could then test the reasonableness of the by-law elsewhere. The notices simply asked people not to bring icecream on. to buses. Mr A. C. Johns: We have "No Smoking” notices in the buses, but I have not heard the tobacco industry saying that it is an attack on them. The board decided to make a formal reply to the journal on the lines of the discussion.