TO STOP DRINKING AT COUNTRY DANCES

Northern Advocate, 3 January 1936, Page 6

TO STOP DRINKING AT COUNTRY DANCES

KAURI TAKES STRONG ACTION

RULES DRAWN UP TO PREVENT ABUSE

"VO liquor allowed on the premises. x Any woman leaving the hall during a dance to be charged readmission. Intoxicated persons not allowed in the building. These rules have been drawn up by the Kauri Hall Committee to check drinking there. Kauri and its people have long enjoyed a Jhigh name for good conduct, and social gatherings held in that centre have won aa enviable reputation for behaviour and for hospitality. So popular have dances and such occasions at Kauri become, that they have been patronised by large numbers from the towns of Whangarei and Hikurangi and from surrounding districts. It is a section of these outsidei’s who have been causing trouble recently. Election Night Climax, Things reached their climax on election night, when young people, waiting for the hall to be cleared after the taking of the poll, became rather too boisterous. That night, too, it is understood several kegs of beer were on tap in motor cai’s parked outside the hall. The Hall Committee would not tolerate such goings on, and the Women’s Institute was also'active in the matter. As a result mandatory notices, as above, signed by the chairman of the Hall Committee, Mr W. J. Bell, were displayed at the dance on New Year’s Eve. “Over The Odds.” “Things were really getting over the odds,” Mr W. J. Bell, chairman of the hall committee told the “Northern Advocate” this morning. “Some of the young fellows seem to think they can come to the country for a booze, with a ' dance as secondary consideration. The position was becoming worse and. if it had been allowed to continue decent people would not attend, and the dances would have b e en confined to a lot of roughs.”

“It was really the Women’s Institute at Kauri which first took the matter up.” Mr Bell went on. “They approached the hall committee, and, from our own observations, we realised that we had to do something or close the building. Rules Drawn Up. “The committee drew up the rules, and the placards, which were displayed at the tennis dance on New Year’s Eve, were signed by me as chairman of that committee. We intend to see that the regulations are /strictly carried out in future.”

The function on New Year’s Eve was a most enjoyable one, drawing a happy crowd from far and near. The notices were the subject of much comment, but very few of those present took exception to the restrictions. The majority of the young people accepted them gladly, and the dance was a model of orderly conduct in every way.