STREET GAMES

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 139, 8 March 1941, Page 12

STREET GAMES

Stopped By Police Yesterday VIEWED AS GAMBLING

Devices Used In Queen Carnival Campaign

' Police put a stop to the use of certain devices in Wellington city streets yesterday in the Victory Queen Carnival to raise funds for patriotic purposes. It is understood the reason was that the devices were regarded as gambling. No further action is likely, as the devices were being used in good faith for the national patriotic campaign. The devices consisted of a dice game, in which odds were given, and a “chocolate wheel”; the holder of a winning number selected by rotating the wheel and stopping it won a prize of a box of chocolates. These devices were being used in several parts of the city, were attracting considerable crowds, and were bringing in money rapidly.

They had been used (from time to time during the week, but, yesterday being the final day of the Movie Queen Committee’s occupancy of the air raid shelter at the corner of Featherston Street and Lambton Quay, a special drive was being made, and the devices were in action at several places. They were mostly operated by well-known executive officers of prominent institutions in the film industry, most firms in which have their Dominion headquarters in Wellington. The prizes, which consisted of up to 21b. boxes of chocolates for a contribution of 3d. to 1/- to the Movie Queen’s funds, proved attractive to the crowds, and the devices appeared to be doing brisk business when uniformed police officers ordered them to close down, during the afternoon. Those outside the air raid shelter were last to be closed.

Members of the Movie Queen Committee stated that they had subsequently communicated with the mayor and with the Commissioner of Police; the latter had informed them that these games could only be permitted by special Aet of Parliament. The committeemen expressed particular regret, that the games should have been stopped at this late stage, when it meant that the Friday evening shopping hours would be lost to the drive for funds. They were, however, not so greatly concerned from the point of view of their own committee, as that the entire Queen Carnival campaign would now be deprived of the use of these'devices, which had proved so popular with the general public. It would be hard luck on those committees that ha'ti not yet had their turn to make use of them. The same devices were stated to have been used in other large cities throughout the Dominion for patriotic purposes, without police interference; indeed, the dice game board in use yesterday had been brought up from Christchurch after being operated in Cathedral Square there. In spite of this setback to their operations, the week’s drive for the Movie Queen was most successful. Yesterday was a particularly good day. A spectacular “race-day,” with scooter races, pram-and-baby races, walking and barrel-rolling races, was arranged in the lunch-hour outside the air raid shelter; this attracted a large number of people, and provided considerable diversion. However, it did not prove as keen an attraction as the. games which were subsequently stopped. These were crowded throughout the middle of the day. Tickets in an enormous number of interesting and original raffles for such prizes as a trip to Samoa, to Rotorua, round the North Island, a banquet for six at a Wellington hotel, a £9O refrigerator, and a delightful' black pony, were on sale throughout the city, and these too attracted keen attention. In the evening, impromptu concert parties and other entertainments carried on the campaign vigorously.