SHOPPING HOURS

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 74, 24 September 1927, Page 10

SHOPPING HOURS

AMENDMENT CAUSES ALARM (By Telegraph.) (Special to "The Evening Post.") PALMEKSTON N., This Day. The meeting o£ Palrnerstou North retailers licit! last evening passed unanimously the following resolution:—"That this meeting of retailers of Palmerslon North called to consider the Shop and Offices Amendment Bill, emphatically protests against the provisions made in section It to bring all shops in all districts specified in. the second schedule under section 31 o£ the. principal Act (which includes Palmerston North and other similar towns), allowing auy shopkeepers to apply to a ■Magistrate for total or partial exemption as to closing hours." The subject of the proposed amendment to the Act was introduced by the chairman, Mr. James Wallace, who referred to section 14 as an attempt to undermine tbe foundations of a system of shopping that was the envy of the whole world. He proposed the resolution, and pointed out that the public were quite satisfied with the present shopping hours which iiad been in existence for years. Every shopkeeper had begun business knowin" tnat snoppmg hours were limited, which was a direct benefit to himself and his assistants. The applications to Magistrates would be a constant source of irritation to every section of retail traders, as m every application retailers would, in sc^rotetwD have to appear before the Magistrate and oppose the applications. WDnffh t" WC? e graDted ' «*ailers would have to seek amended legislation so that all shops might keep open, and ™f F ATffree? rce.d> the whole retail trade of the Dominion. Mr. W. H. Brown, who seconded the motion, said he considered the Act in Bm c|s Ot PPp°ass:d nt o*■ Daylisht 8^ think it is only for a man away out on a beach or somewhere else where a person may require goods after closing time " hardship"*""* 6r the Act haS *° plead Mr. Wallace agreed that the Magistrate would have a difficult job in granting an exemption, but the loophole was there. The beach shops did not come under the Act. The motion .wag carried.