SUNDAY TRADING.

Hastings Standard, Issue 99, 20 August 1896, Page 3

SUNDAY TRADING.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —A letter appearing in your issue of the 18th inst. signed " Templar," charging the local police with neglecting their duty by permitting the hotels to trade on Sunday, and further accusing the hotelkeepers of Hastings with supplying liquor to drunken persons on the Sabbath day, caused me considerable- surprise. As the publicans of this town have always made it their proud boast that the houses controlled by them are conducted scrupulously within the meaning of the Licensing Act, I felt, as an uninterested party, that it was my duty—in justice to both the police and the publicans—to make enquiries in order to ascertain m how fiir the grave statements made by your correspondent were correct. The result of my research was that I have it on unquestionable authority that almost invariably the persons seen drunk in the streets on Sunday are strangers from Napier or from some of the surrounding districts who drive into this town and often arrive here in a state of intoxication. The case to which "Templar" alludes was one of the instances I refer to. The man arrived here drunk, and applied at several of the hotels for more drink, but was refused wherever he applied, with the result that he remained on the streets. From this it will be apparent that had the local hotelkeepers been guilty of the charges levelled at them by " Templar " and had broken the law by taking this man's money and permitting him to remain on their premises, it is more than probable your correspondent would not have been scandalised by the sight of.a drunken man in the streets on Sunday, and these rash accusations would never have been made against them. It is hard lines upon a respectable and deserving class of men, as our hotelkeepers undoubtedly are, to be obliged to suffer for the sins of others. The police officers here are efficient and thoroughly impartial to all classes of the community, and it is most unfair to attack them in the Press without fully investigating the facts. Trusting this letter will right an undoubted wrong. —I am, &c, Fair Piay,