"SHOUTING" & PENALTIES

Evening Post, Volume XCV, Issue 44, 20 February 1918, Page 6

"SHOUTING" & PENALTIES

There is something to be said for the contention of the Hotel Workers' Union, as laid before the Attorney-General yesterday, that the penalties imposed upon bartenders for breaches of the anti-shout-ing regulations are unnecessarily severe. Not only are the offenders subject to a monetary penalty, but, by the regulations themselves (the Magistrate having no discretionary power), they are deprived for six months of employment in or about any licensed premises. Probably the framera of the regulations had in mind that the law would not prove popular, and that heavy penalties would have to be inflicted to ensure its being respected. If this was what was anticipated, it has proved correct. The section of the public mainly concerned has, to a great extent, exercised its mind rather in the direction of discovering ways of evasion than in' an endeavour to give effeot to the regulations. The burden of enforcing some measure of observance has fallen upon the hotel licensees, their servants (tho bartenders), and the police. The bartenders have been in the most unfortunate position, since it has been their duty to watch for attempted' breaches of the law, with the certain knowledge that should they relax their vigilance they become parties to an offence, and though they are not the prime offenders the heaviest punishment is visited upon them. Their offence is not "shouting," but pormitting others to "shout." Sir Francis Bell, in his reply to the deputation, said that the double penalty was imposed also in the Customs laws and the licensing law. But in both these cases there is a distinction. Under, the Customs laws the prime O offenders are punished, and under the licensing law the second penalty is in tho nature of a bad mark against the licensee, whose fitness to hold a license is a proper subject for investigation and record. When the anti-shouting law was first made we regarded it as an experiment, and we have since had doubts of its soundness. If it %» accepted that public co-operation in observance and enforcement is an'essential of a goofl law, then this does not comply with the requirements. Mr. Justice Edwafldfc has commented unfavourably upon the methods required to secure convictions, and the soundness of his comments has not been disputed. Certainly it -would appear that bardenders who offend do so under constant pressure from hotel customers {■whether willingly or ■unwillingly), and if the law is to remajh. in operation it: is. hardly equitable that they should be regarded, so far as the penalties are concerned, as the peasons mainly"/responsible for its observance), and the ohief culprits when it is broken. The early closing of hotels during th« period of the war is an accepted fact, but the anti-shouting law will require easeful scrutiny by the authorities.