The Press MONDAY, AUGUST 5, 1957. The Police and Licensing Laws

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28347, 5 August 1957, Page 10

The Press MONDAY, AUGUST 5, 1957. The Police and Licensing Laws

It is not difficult to detect, and it is easy to sympathise with, a note of exasperation in the. report of the Controller-General of Police (Mr S. ,T. Barnett) when he discusses the licensing laws. There are no laws which take so much time and money to administer as the licensing laws, says Mr Barnett, no«laws which are so difficult and irksome to enforce; no laws, for which the police are responsible, which are so complex and difficult of interpretation for the layman. And the “ dispropor- “ tionate amount of its total en- “ deavours ” that the police force spends on the licensing laws produces satisfaction for neither public nor police. Mr Barnett says that the complaints and criticism which reach him about the enforcement of the licensing laws ‘ greatly outnumber all the complaints in other fields of police work. There are “ too many ”, says Mr Barnett, who decry the efficiency, the efforts, the sincerity —or, worse still—the integrity of the police in the surveillance of the licensing laws. The question chiefly at issue,

of course, is after-hours trading; • and on this question Mr Barnett pleads, on behalf of police and public, for clearer and simpler law. “If there is ** to be no public sale of liquor “ after 6 p.m., and the police “ are expected to see to it, their “ task should be made less " complex, and members of the “• public should know more “ certainly where they stand “in relation to the laws. ** At present there are too many “subterfuges possible under the “laws. Most would be checked “if there was a simple law “about the entertainment of the “guests of lodgers and licen- “ sees ”. Mr Barnett points out that the principal Licensing Act is that of 1908, which was substantially a re-enactment of an ac G 1881. There have been 17 acts amending the 1908 act, but, declares Mr Barnett, “ almost nothing has been done “to make easier the interpreta- “ tion and application of provisions relating to the sale and “ purchase of liquor and the .“ conduct of licensed premises ”. Indeed, Mr Barnett points out, the larger part of the law relating to enforcement is now contained, not in acts, but in the judicial decisions. That some of these may not be easy even for lawyers -to understand was shown last year when magistrates were in public conflict about the effects of a judgment by the Chief Justice on the rights of lodgprs and" licensees to entertain guests in hotel bars after normal drinking hours. Mr Barnett’s plea for clarifying the law about after-hours trading is not new. For instance, Sir Robert Kennedy, who in 1954 conducted the inquiry into

the conduct of members of the police force, said that some of the officers examined in his inquiry felt sa “frustrated” in their enforcement of the law

that they suggested alterations to the law to simplify enforcement. The Licensing Control Commission, which has investi-

gated the licensed trade very fully, has repeatedly drawn attention to “the mischiefs associated with hours of “ trading under the present “ law ”. It has pointed out that frequent breaches of the law regarding after-hours trading have brought the law into disrepute. When the Police Estimates were being discussed in the House of Representatives last year members had a great deal. to say about after-hours trading, with particular reference to evidence on after-hours drinking given in a murder trial which had just ended in the Supreme Court in Christchurch. This particular discussion in Parliament brought some real hope that a solution might be found, for to Parliament, of course, belongs the responsibility for fixing drinking hours. The Prime Minister (Mr Holland) said that perhaps the best solution to the problem of after-hours drinking would be “to reconsider the licensing “ laws and bring them more into

“ line with what the public “ indicate they want ”. The plain fact, as Mr Holland seemed to recognise, is that many New Zealanders are convinced that the present licensing laws are wrong, and have few scruples in flouting them. The thousands of New Zealanders who have been overseas in recent years, many In the armed services and many as civilian tourists, know just how obsolete New Zealand’s licensing laws have become by modern standards; and many, using the standards of highly civilised countries overseas, fail to see that it is reprehensible to have a glass of beer in a New Zealand hotel after 6 o’clock. Many persons resent laws which unfairly prevent many New Zealand men, because of the hours they work or the shifts of work in their particular calling, from having a drink in a hotel on most days of the week. The police force, as Mr Barnett says, is concerned with the laws as they are and with ensuring that they are complied with. But the task of the police force is made much more difficult when a large number of persons believe the law to be foolish, outmoded, and unfair. The campaign to stamp out bookmaking, conducted in great earnestness in the years before the Totalisator Agency Board was established, showed that a law cannot easily be enforced if any large section of the community disapproves of it. Over recent years, Parliament has been given plenty of

evidence (in reports laid on the table) of dissatisfaction with the licensing laws. Mr Barnett’s strong plea on behalf of the police force points, in effect, to the injustice that Parliament does to the nation’s law enforcement body when, by omission, it makes law enforcement more difficult than need be. Parliament clearly has an urgent duty to consider how it can help the police. It will do this best if it is ready to face boldly the whole question of licensing and the public’s wishes.