CLUB LIQUOR LICENCES

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29222, 4 June 1960, Page 4

CLUB LIQUOR LICENCES

“Serious” Effect On Hotel Trade

(New Zealand Press Association/ HAWERA, June 3. The issue of liquor licences to chartered clubs was seriously affecting the retail trade of hotels, Mr J. A. C. Fleming, the licensee of the Central Hotel, Hawera, told the Egmont Licensing Committee at its meeting in Hawera today. Hotels were at present in a very precarious position and trade was diminishing quickly, he said.

He said that the committee granted licences and dictated the standards to which hotels must be maintained and dictated the manner in which they were to be conducted but after that licensees were “left high and dry.”

Any protection that the committee could give to hotel keepers would be much appreciated. The brewery interests were “on the box seat,” and cared little for the hotels when they could still sell their beer through the clubs.

The chairman of the committee (Mr A. W. Yortt. S.M.) said that the committee’s task was to supervise the standards of the hotels. It did hot allocate the licenses—that was the responsibility of the commission. The question of improving trade was one for the trade itself.