HOTEL LICENSES

Greymouth Evening Star, 11 March 1939, Page 5

HOTEL LICENSES

WEST ('OAST •’PRODIGALITY." [l’EB PRESS ASSOCIATION.) DUNEDIN, March 8. The "Otago Daily Timos" says: Il is a curious thing that no rnatlor what changes are brought aboul in the distribution of the population of Ihe Dominion. it seems to be Ihe officially accepted thing that the position as regards the distribution of licensed hostelries should remain static. The position is usefully and forcibly illustrated in some information bearing on license distribution which has been collected by the Hastings Progress League. The West Coast remains an outstanding example of a prodigality in license distribution in early days, of which a conspicuous legacy obtains up to the present. Greymouth, for example, according to the figures supplied by the Hastings League, has 23 hotels for a population of 8,220, Westport has 17 for a population of 4,250, Hokitika, has 14 for 2.710 persons. Moreover, in some parts of the South Island, which are loft nameless. there are twoo r three hotels to serve a scattered population of little more than fifty. North Island communities are not left out of the story, and the case of Hastings itself is not overlooked. Here, it is pointed out, is a town with a population of 18,300. the requirements of which are served by the existence of six hotels. If not in so many words, at least inferentially, the question is asked why Riverton, with a population of only 1000. should rejoice in the possession of just as many licensed houses as Hastings? There is no logic, in the circumstance that the growing centre should have to be content with a disproportionately small number of hotels because of tile disproportionately large number that continue to be allowed in communities which have never grown considerably or from which population has definitely moved away.”