2500 patronise fish shop

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32525, 8 February 1971, Page 12

2500 patronise fish shop

A Department of Labour inspector was one of about 2500 persons who passed through the door of Mr B. E. Mather’s Fendalton fish shop on Saturday morning, when nine tons of frozen fish and poultry was sold at reduced prices. “Takings would have exceeded $3OOO if I had stayed open an hour or so more. But I was sold out four hours after I opened,” said Mr Mather last evening. The shop was opened in spite of a warning from the Labour Department on Friday that it was an offence under the Shops and Offices Act to sell frozen fish on Saturdays and Sundays. EVIDENCE OBTAINED “The inspector came into the shop about 10.30 a.m. on Saturday and made himself known to me. He did not buy any fish, but made it clear that he had got what evidence he needed,” said Mr Mather. Complaints had beea lodged with the department by four other fishmongers, and so it was expected that procedings would follow, Mr Mather said. “But I may try to fight this thing through with the department. I have engaged a solicitor to help me,” he said.

The object of the sale-*#-which had been advertised since last Tuesday—was to show people that fish was available from fish retailers at reasonable prices, said Mr Mather. RULES OF HYGIENE “I chose Saturday partly as a protest against the selling of fresh fish from a fishing boat at Lyttelton last week-end,” he said.

“You don’t buy meat over a barbed wire fence from a farmer and so why should fishermen be allowed to sell fresh fish straight from their boats when we have to comply with stringent rules of hygiene laid down by the Labour Department,” said Mr Mather. . “If the fishermen complied with the rules that we have

to comply with, it would be all right; but they did not: and if the Department of Labour allows it, I think it is a bit poor,” he said. No action had been taken by the fish retailers at the time as there was no association through which they could work, said Mr Mather.