Licensed Restaurant At Airport

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29916, 1 September 1962, Page 10

Licensed Restaurant At Airport

Approval by the Licensing "Control Commission of a restaurant liquor licence at Christchurch International Airport is welcome. Whether a licence was granted or not, the City Council intended to add to the amenities at the airport by constructing a new restaurant on the roof of the overseas wing. The granting of a licence will reward the council for its initiative in adding a firstclass restaurant to the facilities at New Zealand’s finest airport. The ‘conditions of the licence will not permit anything of “the nature of drinking at bars, or any other type of drinking except in the ■restaurant with a substantial meal. Even persons who might have been apprehensive about extension of licensed drinking—under strictly limited conditions—to an airport will have been 'freassured by experiences in licensed restaurants in NewZealand over the past year. In this year’s report, the .Licensing Control Commission says experience has •proved groundless the fears of some that to legalise the

sale of a very limited range of' alcoholic beverages in selected restaurants would create or accentuate social evils. Indeed, the commission’s conclusion, after reviewing the behaviour of restaurant proprietors and their patrons, is “ that there “is far less likelihood of “ excessive consumption of “ alcoholic liquor in a “ licensed restaurant than “ in any other circumstances “in which liquor may be “ taken ”, With opportunities to serve light ales and wines at table, the new restaurant at Christchurch Airport will provide an amenity that travellers on international lines are accustomed to, and will be a boon to travellers on New Zealand's internal lines who will no doubt increasingly use the restaurant for refreshment and entertainment. And if people from' Christchurch are attracted to a first-class restaurant in the environment of a modem airport, with its lights and flying, will not this be a most desirable use of an amenity provided by the city for the use of its citizens as well as travellers?