"Virtual Prohibition” For Many West Coast Workers

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28321, 5 July 1957, Page 6

"Virtual Prohibition” For Many West Coast Workers

(New Zealand Press Association)

GREYMOUTH, July 4.

Prohibition virtually exists now on the West Coast for a large number of working men, according to a prominent local body member and member of the Licensing Committee, Mr P. Blanchfield. He was one of a number of citizens whose views were invited on the recent strict enforcement of the licensing, laws. Mr Blanchfield said that many sawmill workers, back - shift miners, and others, in spite of being among those who gave an 80 per cent, vote against prohibition three years ago, were denied access to a hotel, except possibly on Saturdays. A “tolerant” attitude to drinking on the West Coast, described by witnesses appearing before the Licensing Commission and the Police Inquiry Commission, no longer existed, he said. Greater police attention to hotels in the towns had created more than a mild disquiet among many residents, and police squads, operating from Greymouth had drastically upset the routine of smaller country where the local hotels had in the past served the community

needs with the rarest sign of interruption. £550 in Fines

In the first six months of this year, more than 100 Grey district residents had paid £550 to the Court in penalties for after hours drinking. “Yet worse is to come,” said Mr Blanchfield, “and Court sessions in the coming weeks may hear some seven or eight charges against holders of liquor licences and their alleged after-hour customers.”

Local body leaders and union officials, when approached, accepted that the West Coast could not expect concessions from a law applying to the rest of New Zea-; land, but they declare that, with the special conditions existing here, a case can be made out for a local vote.

The Mayor of Hokitika (Mr E. W. Heenan) said that the people should have the right of choice in setting the hours in which they, should be entitled to drink on licensed premises. A district vote would give them that right. The secretary of the Hotelworkers’ Union (Mr S. Gladstone) said the enforcement ol the law created a degrading situation. A non-drinker, he favoured Government action without a referendum. Hours for other business were set by the Government, he said.

The secretary of the Grey District Miners’ Central Committee (Mr F. W. Munden), ol Dobson, representing almost 1000 workers, declared that the present laws penalised mine-workers, particularly those on back-shin who were virtually prohibited. It was against the mining regulations for a man to enter a mine when affected by liquor, he said and back-shift men, unable tc drink before working, were refused a legal drink after the\ finished.

“Take it from me, the miners have given plenty of thought to the liquor laws,” he said. “Like me—and I rarely drink—they feel they should be able to have a drink when they feel the neea Of it”