CLOSING HOURS

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 147, 19 December 1945, Page 8

CLOSING HOURS

SHOPS AND HOLIDAYS

SOME SHUT CONTINUOUSLY

The butcher, the baker, and the fruitcase breaker and their doings over the holiday period will concern the housewives of Wellington more than most things. It will be a case of planned economy when it comes to deciding how much perishable food to buy when.

Pork or. no pork., the butchers will be closed -from 5 p.m. on Christmas Eve, next Monday, till the following Thursday. Tuesday and Wednesday:of the New Year week will also be a butchers' holiday.

Bread will be baked for delivery on Monday■■ of each week and then not till the Thursday. ; ;

Greengrocers and fruiterers in the association will be open until 9 p.m. on Christmas and New Year's Eve — some may keep open till 10 p.m. They will close on Christmas bay and Boxing Day and on New Year's Day. ;

Grocers will be open for the usual late night on Friday this-week and on Saturday till noon. On Christmas Eye some will close at 8.30 p.m.—others, may open till 10 p.m.—and reopen on Thursday. On Friday, December 28, grocers will close at 5.30 p.m. and will, not open on Saturday, December 29. On New Year's Eve they will close at 5.30 p.m., reopening on Thursday, January 3, and serving their late night for the week on Friday.

Practically all other retail shops will observe the same hours and days as the grocers with the exception that most of them will remain open till 10 o'clock on Christmas Eve. This will affect such establishments as footwear, furniture, drapery, 'mercery, frocks, stationers, beauty parlours, and the like. . . . ■ I MEALS IN THE CITY. On some days over the, period the best chance of getting a meal in town will be to visit the Zoo round about 4 p.m. and fight it out with the lions. Some of the city's biggest restaurants will be closed continuously from Christmas Eve to January 7 or 9. This Will give depleted staffs a muchneeded break—which many of them would have been tempted to take in any case, according to past experience, at this time of year. There seems to /be no set rule for the closing of milk bars and grill rooms but from inquiries it would seem that apart from the usual ones on Christmas Day, Boxing Day, and New Year's. Day, there will be a reasonable sprinkling of them open, even if short-staffing may give hungry customers the impression that the waitresses had to go out to pick the strawberries or slaughter the boner cow for the sundae or the steak. No set rule applies about the tobacconists and hairdressing shops, either. Intensive inquiries reveal that there is something verging on a shortage of tobacco and cigarettes, so a good many tobacconists will close on Christmas Eve and reopen about the end of the first week in January or the beginning of the second. But if bearded or longhaired men don't want to take up the violin to look the part, they will find a saloon or two open here or there. HOURS FOR CHEMISTS. The city's pharmacies will be closed on the Tuesday and Wednesday each week. On Christmas Eve they will remain open till 9 p.m. and the late night of the New Year week will be Friday, January 4. On other days normal trading hours will be observed, with one exception. Mr. C. E. Wynne, secretary of the Wellington Division of the Chemists' Service Guild, stated that on and after Saturday, December 29, pharmacies will observe Saturday closing. However, during the whole period when other chemists are closed, pharmaceutical requirements will be available at the Urgent Dispensary, Cambridge Terrace. SATURDAY CLOSE-UP. Following consideration by the various sections of the retail trade, it has been decided that butchers and the majority of grocers and other retail shops, other than dairies, fruiterers, confectioners, tearooms, and restaurants, will be closed all day on Saturdays, commencing on Saturday, January 5, 1946. Ladies' hairdressers, ,at a recent meeting, also decided to close their shops on Saturdays all day commencing January 5.