DOOMED HOTELS. THE CASE OF THE LICENSEES.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVII, Issue 139, 14 June 1909, Page 7

DOOMED HOTELS. THE CASE OF THE LICENSEES.

HOW THE SUBURBS ARE AFFECTED. ' After the Ist of July next, the districts comprised in the electorates, of ■Wellington South and Wellington Suburbs will be prohibited areas for the sale of liquor. They enter the growing region of no-license. In s an article 'n Saturday's Post, the names of the hotels affected, their capital values, and the estimated losses of their owners, were set forth in full. Summarised, the statements were that eleven hotels — four in the South and seven in the Suburbs — would be closed. They are the Ngahfluranga and White Horse Hotels at Ngahauranga, ; the All Nations, Kaiwarra; the Railway, Johnsonville ; the. JEsplanade, Thomdon; the Kilbirnie Hotel and the Island Bay Hotel in the Suburbs; and the Park, Grosvenor, and Star and Garter in the South. The names of the owners and the present licensees were also attached. The capital values ascertained from official records amounted to £14.148 for the hotels in Wellington South, and £16,964 for the Suburban houses — the total, for the "dry" area being thus £31,112. ' As the capital values did not include the value of the licenses — obviously the determin•rng constituents in the value, of an hotel — estimates of losses were obtained from the principal owners, Staples and Co. represented by 'Mr. Martin Kennedy, managing director, and Mr. T. G. Macarthy. The loss, represented by the difference between the value of the property before and after no-license w,as estimated at about £26,000. So much for the owners. LICENSEES' POSITION. The case of the licensees is more difficult, as personal elements enter into the question to an extent that complicates the issue. Thus, in several of the hotels affected, the present licensees are recenfc-comers, to whom the position would be clear before they took over the last of the licenses. The following transfers were granted at late meetings of the Suburban and South Licensing Committees. :— Kil'birnie Hotel, G. M. ■Harden to W. S. Barr; All Nations Hotel , W. W. Middleton to Joseph Naylor; .Grosvenor Hotel, Louis Sweet to j Samuel Aitken. It is not likely that in j these cases there will be any serious losses. In the course of a ,round of enqairies, which, included" many of the principal hotels, whose doom is impending, a representative of The Post found a remarkable absence of any bitter feeling towards the party that was chiefly instrumental in bringing about the change. In only one or two instances was there an outburst of the partisan rancour that characterised the days of the struggle. Time has assuaged animosities. After six months' leisure to think it over, most of the people concerned seem to have elected to bow to the inevitable, and take the will of the electoral majority with a decent grace. One heard much of the past, of the old days, of the kindly associations of the public hostelries, and one heard much of the future in varied forecasts of the effects of Nolicense. *Of the present, however, the publicans were generally unwilling to Speak. They were chary of _ publishing their personal losses, and in view of sales j and other changes likely to eventuate at the end of this month, they naturally withheld any information likely to prejudice their position. BOARDINGHOUSES? ' j There was, however, a general agreement that most of the hotel buildings would be of little use for other purposes without extensive alterations, that they were too large for boardinghouses, or ! unsuitably situated. One hotelkeeper showed the Post representative over premises recently renovated, beautifully clean and neat. He had several more years of a lease, "I can't keep this up without a license," he said, "there's nothing in this place to keap a first-class boardinghouse going, and there's precious little in accommodating the public in that line at all. It's practically a dead loss." Most of the suburban hotels are in some such predicament. The case of Kaiwarra, Johnsonville, and Ngahau ranga is quoted as being particularly unfortunate for the licensees of the local houses. At Kaiwarra there are extensive changes taking place. There is the widening of the Hutt-road end the straightening and duplication of the Hutt railway. The workshops of Cable's Foundry, to be shifted there from town, are far advanced. Everything promised greater business for the hotel. Then, at Ngahauranga are similar signs of progress. The meat works and the municipal abattoirs piomise much for the j development of Ngahauranga. Johnsonville, at the top of the Gorge, will suffer also. These are the opinions of local hotelkeepers and residents. RENTAL LESS THAN RATES AND TAXES. Nearer town is the Esplanade Hotel. Here the situation is sxich that the owners, Messrs. Staples and Co., have con- j tinned their lease to the present tenant, Mrs. E. Prictor, at a rental that is actually less than the rates and taxes due on the place. Mr. Martin Kennedy, managing director of Staples and Co., expressly stated this fact to The Post representative as an indication of what losses generally were. The Star and Garter Hotel, which was included in the Wellington South electorate by a recent alteration of boundaries, is conducted by Mr. H. Dooly, who stated that he would lose nearly three years ~of his lease under No-license — that is to say, the remainder of his lease would be current under Prohibition. He felt quite sure if the vote of the people in the neighbourhood were taken the house would not bft closed. "EXTREMELY HARD." Mr. J. Lutz, of the Park Hotel, New town, considered the case of the liceu- ; sees extremely hard. It would mean a loss to him of £4000 or over. Person ally, he had always* endeavoured to check anything like excessive drinking. He recalled many a quarter of an hour, spent talking men round to a common sense view of the situation, that they bad no business to be wasting their substance in hotels. He deprecated ths "shouting" system, and drew 'a comparison with the sober temperance iK drinking of Germany. At the same time, he declared, there was practically no drunkenness in Ne-wtown. He added that the loss on furniture and fittings* — apart from anything else — would be seveTe. . . At all the hotels where enquiries were made it was noticed that many hands had been dispensed with in vieV of the approaching closure. There will, ot course, be further discharges when that, takes place.

Messrs. T. Kennedy Mactlonald, Ltd., insert particulars in our auction columns of a sale of household furniture, piano, etc., on the premises, No. 205, Upper Wil-lis-street, to-morrow, at 1 1.30 o'clock, on account of Mrs. Cohen, who is giving up housekeeping. The firm also insert particulars of a sale of household, furniture in their rooms on Wednesday, at 1.30 o'clock. On Thursday, at No. 319, Wel-lington-terrace, the firm will sell the whole of the household furniture, contents of nine rooms. Tho sale commenoea «t 1,30 o'clock.