Wanganui Hotels ‘Disgraceful’

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30511, 5 August 1964, Page 1

Wanganui Hotels ‘Disgraceful’

(New Zealand Press Association)

WANGANUI, August 4

The Licensing Control Commission today described Wanganui hotels as “in one sense our greatest problems so far.”

The commission was giving licence review decisions.

“For a city which takes pride in its public services and amenities, Wanganui has been remarkably complacent about, or perhaps more truly, long suffering in its acceptance of its hotels,” the commission said. The commission reviewed 14 licences. “Under tolerant examination only one hotel passed out without qualification and two others get a good pass. “As for the rest they vary from disgraceful at the nether end of the scale to barely satisfactory. “What can be said is that, as a group, the hotelkeepers

or managers are better than their hotels.

"We felt sorry for some of them in their impossible task of keeping a good house.” The commission noted that only one Wanganui hotel was owned by a hotel-owning company “although a number have some form of financial aid from such companies.” It said the “small upper strata” of Wanganui hotels did well because they were so few.

“Indeed, if it be a matter for gratification, Wanganui can plume itself on having so many hotels which offer lodgings at cheaper tariffs than we have so far reviewed in a city.”

The commission said It was not surprised that so manv motels were springing up and that private hotels were so busy.

“As a broad criticism, we have not yet reviewed a group of hotels in which so many were badly furnished, so lacking in amenities and were so unattractive and uncomfortable as lodging places,” the commission said.