PRIVATE BARS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 9494, 25 April 1894, Page 4

PRIVATE BARS.

Amidst all the evils alleged to be connected with our drink traffic, we have nothing so bad as exists in Sydney. There it is stated that certain holders of licenses let out in their hotels " private bars." These places are rented from the licensees by women who are said to be prostitutes, and who sell poisonous intoxicants, and who are in league with infamous characters both men and women. Drugged and spurious liquors are vended by girls who hire these bars. The subject has lately been brought up by a deputation of the Licensed Victuallers Association of Sydney to the Minister of Justice, urging upon him that a stringent law should be passed to put down the practice. The present movement against such bars is therefore not the action of persons who are opposed to the whole trade of liquor selling, but of those who are desirous to carry on the business decently and honestly. Mr. Rainford, the president of the Association, admitted that the chance of letting these private bars at a big weekly rental was a sore temptation to a licensee who had heavy claims to meet in these hard times. But he also declared that "in nine cases out of ten, a bar sub-let to females _ was disreputably conducted, that a vile class of liquor was frequently dispensed, and that the business of the bar was made use of for the purpose of a trade highly injurious to public morals." The reply of the Minister to the deputation was that the law as it existed was sufficient to enable the police to put down such places, and that when the police know that these private ban* -cxlab - and are conducted • by prostitutes, it,should be an easy matter to successfully oppose the renewal of licenses. New Zealand cities can at all events claim to be before Sydney in regard to the carrying on of the liquor trade, for we have never heard of the system of sub-letting private bars in. any hotel here.