FORTY YEARS IN WINE AND SPIRIT TRADE

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29246, 2 July 1960, Page 14

FORTY YEARS IN WINE AND SPIRIT TRADE

Forty years of unbroken service with one wine and spirit firm was completed in January by Mr A. D. Healy, who this week retired from the managership of the Christchurch branch of, the Dunedin firm of R. Powley and Company, Ltd. Mr Healy joined the firm in 1920 and for. years travelled the South Island as its representative. He was appointed manager at Christchurch when the company bought the wholesale liquor licence of R. Forbes and Company, Lyttelton, and opened new premises at Woolston, in the Lyttelton licensing district. The staff in 1946 was Mr Healy and one driver. The business has expanded greatly and extended premises are now occupied. Besides dealing in wines artd spirits, the company has developed hotel catering and supplies. As a young man, but not then at an age to be interested. Mr Heaiy saw the end of the 10 pun. closing of hotels. The demand now, he said, was for hotels to be opened in the evenings as on the Continent. . The improvement generally in hotels and service was pronounced, said Mr Healy. The hotels seemed to be “stretching themselves out” to give better services and provide more facilities.

Home supplies of spirits were still restricted. Importations were not plentiful enough to meet the demand. The sale of New Zealand wines had expanded “terrifically,” said Mr Healy. The production of New Zealand wines had been assisted by tariff protection. “And the wines are very nice,” he said. “They have improved vastly in quality and the winemakers have gone out of their way to improve the marketing and the range. They have gone in for various types, such as liqueurs, and they seem to be getting somewhere.”

Mr Healy was for three terms president of the Canterbury Wine and Spirits Merchants’ Association and retired when his retirement from business was impending. Sport has been Mr Healy’s main interest outside his work. Among the sports in which he has been active are .Rugby, yachting, golf.

tennis and athletics. He is still an honorary member of the Russlcy Golf Club. He was president for a number of years of the Canterbury Licensed Victuallers’ Golf Association and was first president, and is now patron, of the New Zealand L.V.A. Golf Association, which annually holds a tournament in a different centre.

It has been a busy week socially for Mr Healy. The wine and spirits merchants gave him a party, the .Woolston ststff entertained him on Wednesday, and the directors of Towley and Company held a party for him in a Christchurch hotel.