POST OFFICE IN HOTEL

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28157, 21 December 1956, Page 8

POST OFFICE IN HOTEL

86-Year-Old Service Challenged AUTHORITIES QUESTION LEGALITY

"The Press” Special Service DUNEDIN, December 20.

Deep in the heart of Central Otago a hotel is also a post office—a function that it has performed for 86 years without any intended air of mystery. However, official sources have now “discovered” the existence of this service and the hotel must apply for permission to operate the post office. The Arthur’s Point Hotel, five miles from Queenstown, established the post office in 1870, during an era when service apparently was more important than red tape. The hotel was willing to provide the amenities; postal authorities gladly installed the equipment; and in the words of an old resident still living in Arthur’s Point: “The day we got our post office was a big day.” A few thousand telephone calls and letters have passed through the post office since those days, but the other day, the postmaster-publician (Mr Gordon McMillan) received the following letter: — “Attention has been drawn to the fact that a post office is operating in your hotel. The Licensing Act, 1908. Section 168, requires the permission of the Licensing Committee to be obtained for the establishment of a post office in or at licensed premises. Will you please make application by letter to the Wallace Licensing Committee for permission to have the post office in your hotel. I have requested the chief postmaster to make formal application to establish the post office. — V. M. Fraser, Clerk, Licensing Committee.”

The hotel is the only building in a remote area which becomes the centre of intense ski-ing activity in the winter and tourist traffic in the summer.