LIQUOR PRICE ORDER: TEST CASE SUGGESTED

Greymouth Evening Star, 13 August 1948, Page 3

LIQUOR PRICE ORDER: TEST CASE SUGGESTED

(P.A.) CHRISTCHURCH, Aug. 12. “I have no knowledge of the matter and no comment to make,” said the Director of Price Control (Mr H. L. Wise), commenting on remarks of Mr F. G. Young, secretary of the New Zealand’ Hotel Workers’ Federation, about the recent price order for spirits and beer.

In a report received by the Canterbury Licensed Victuallers’ Association this week, Mr Young recommended hotel licensees to disregard the order and defend any prosecutions which might be made. A .test case could then be made. The other course open was to attack the validity of the order by proceedings in the Supreme Court. Any licensee prosecuted should be defended by the best legal brains available and the whole trade should foot the bill, he said. The order might be bad in law, according to a legal opinion quoted by Mr Young. The opinion held that clause 7 of the order fixing the price of oeer at 6d for lOoz was invalid as the Price Tribunal had no power to order licensees to serve beer in lOoz containers.

“We should not, however, act in a provocative manner, because if we do steps will undoubtedly be taken to legalise the price order by redrafting or by other means,” said Mr Young. “We should use it primarily as a means of delaying the operation of the order, thereby securing more •time to seek by negotiation relief from its harsh terms.

“To take advantage of this fault in the drafting of the' order is to ask for more trouble later,” he said, referring to the recent case in Greymouth where a Magistrate held that a measure for brandy did not come within the Weights and Measures Act. “I strongly recommend licensees as far as is practicable to serve spirits in nips that are 42 to the bottle, and to charge 7d where beer is sold in 12oz containers and 6d when it is sold in smaller containers,” Mr Young continued. “Country hotels using smaller containers than lOoz should continue to do so where, after taking freight charges into account, their profit is not substantially greater than that allowed to city hotelkeepers.” .