LICENSING POLL

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 57, 5 September 1945, Page 4

LICENSING POLL

"SHOULD BE ABOLISHED"

If licensed premises throughout New Zealand were in the same condition as those in the area known as Greater Auckland, at least half of them should either be demolished and reconstruct!ed or reconditioned, said Mr. J. H. Luxford, S.M., in evidence before the Royal Commission on Licensing yesterday. An average expenditure of £10.000 on 500 hotels equalled £5,000,000, but the total expenditure on all the hotels likely to be affected under a scheme of redistribution of licences was likely greatly to exceed that sum. Mr. Luxford said that the first question for consideration was whether it was fair and reasonable to call upon owners to undertake the capital expenditure necessary ■to bring all licensed premises to the standard they should be both for the retail sale of alcoholic liquor and for the accommodation of the travelling public when the question of national continuance or national prohibition was submitted to the electors at every General Election. "In my opinion the licensing poll should be abolished," said the witness. "The only argument in favour of its retention is that it is a weapon in the hands of the people which can be used to keep the 'trade' up to the mark. "That argument can be answered thus: 'The trade has not been kept up to the mark for the past 20 years; but the vote against prohibition has steadily gained; anyway, people do not as a rule cut off their noses to spite their faces. .The real protection of the public interest lies in the proper administrative control of licensed premises. That cannot fairly and reasonably be effective with the bogey of national prohibition always round the corner. If most people are agreed that it will never be carried, the sooner the poll is discontinued the better.' "The licensing pol] was brought into being as a result of the pressure exerted by the prohibition party on the Government of the day and not in response to a spontaneous demand of the people. Still, the holding of the liquor poll has continued for so many years that it is unlikely that any Government would repeal the relevant statutory provisions without a direct mandate from the people. "My suggestion -is that the Royal Commission on Licensing recommend that at the next licensing poll, a special issue be put before the electors to determine whether or not the national licensing poll should be continued."