CHAINED TO BAR

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30715, 2 April 1965, Page 2

CHAINED TO BAR

Hotel Rights Sought

(N.Z. Press Assn. —Copyright) BRISBANE. March 31

Two married women fighting for the right to drink side by side with men in Queensland pubs chained themselves to a public bar in a suburban Brisbane hotel for an hour today. The women, both married to Queensland University lecturers and each the mother of two young children, elbowed up to the bar of the Regatta Hotel and drank beer with peak-hour crowds of men. Police were called to the hotel after the women, Mrs Rosalie Bognor and Mrs Merle Thornton, entered the bar at 5 p.m. and asked for a lemonade.

When they were refused service they produced a thick dog chain and padlocked their ankles to the footrail.

The two women were supplied with glasses of beer by sympathetic male patrons.

A detective asked the women for the keys to the padlocks, but they said they hadn't any—so he shattered them with a hammer and the women left the hotel.

Mrs Bognor said the demonstration followed an interview by six women with Queensland’s Justice Minister, Dr. Delamothe, on Tuesday when the Minister refused to alter the State licensing act to allow women into the public bars of hotels.