Morning News A Bitter Blow To Oamaru Revellers

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28450, 3 December 1957, Page 25

Morning News A Bitter Blow To Oamaru Revellers

(From Our Own Reporter)

OAMARU, December 2. To the midnight revellers of Saturday, who lavished hospitality on all who cared to share it and drove their cars up and down the main street with horns blaring to usher in the return of licensed hotels in Oamaru, the news in the morning newspapers that restoration’s lead in the licensing poll had become a deficit, was a body blow, to put it mildly. There was only one subject of conversation in Oamaru today and that was restoration’s reversal from 116 votes in front to 83 behind—on official figures issued this afternoon. Many hard things were being said about the electoral officer in Otago central who credited restor T ation with more than 500 Votes to which the cause was not entitled. Not since V-J night has Thames street, the main business thoroughfare, seen such jubilation as that

which occurred for two hours after the result of the licensing poll had been erroneously announced. In the morning of election day it is estimated that at least 300 cars made trips to the hotels at Georgetown and Glenavy to “stock up” before they closed at noon, and it was some of this liquor supply that added to the conviviality of what was to become, if only fleetingly, a glorious occasion. To give a famous wartime utterance a local application: “Never has so much been drunk in Thames street and environs in such a short time.” Licensed hotels would be back after an absence of 52 years. Amended figures released by the returning officer (Mr R. H. Dixon) today gave the correct vote for restoration as 6331 and for nolicence 4361. On the first (incorrect)) returns the restoration vote was 6833 and that of no-licence

4361. On the 60 per cent, basis required, restoration would have been carried with 116 votes to spare. Under the amended figures restoration has a. deficit of 83 votes. There are about 800 special votes to come, and the returning officer considers that to carry restoration nearly 600 of these will have to be in favour of it.

At the 1954 licensing poll there were 1035 absent, declaration and postal votes, the “straight” voting then favouring restoration by 545 to 490, which, of course, was far short of the required percentage. On that occasion restoration failed by 603 votes to carry the day. The licensing issue at this election has held considerably more interest than the General Election in the Waitaki electorate. The campaign for restoration was organised and vigorously prosecuted by the Oamaru Private Enterprise for Licences Committee, which had the backing and assistance in the field, as it were, of the National Council of the Licensed Trade. The Oamaru No-licence Committee, as usual, also campaigned solidly. A feature of the campaign was a controversy over how much liquor was consumed in the nblicence district. The advocates of restoration alleging the amount spent to be in excess of £300,000 a year. The publicity given to this aspect of what happens in a no-licence district may have been responsible for the swing away from no-licence that occurred on Saturday, compared with the voting in 1954. The town of Oamaru on Saturday voted 3350 for restoration and 2570 for no-licence—a margin of 780 on the straigh't-out figures, compared with the 1954 returns, when restoration polled 3000 to nolicence’s 2434, the difference being 566.