STREET FRUIT STANDS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21108, 16 February 1932, Page 6

STREET FRUIT STANDS.

** NOT A RACIAL QUESTION."

COMPETITION WITH SHOPS,

A recent controversy in Wellington in reference to the licensing of street hawkers' stands was mentioned at a meeting of the executive of the Wellington Ratepayers' Association last week. Members were emphatic in their condemnation of this matter being treated as a racial question. The executive decided that publicity be given to the fact that the Ratepayers' Association had not at any time considered this matter pther than how it affected the ratepayers. "The association's objection to the licensing of street stands," it was stated, •''is that barrowmen, for a consideration, are allowed to compete with traders who are paying heavy rates on their properties. The association considers that the action of the City Council in collecting heavy rates from shopkeepers and then selling certain privileges to barrowmen enabling them to compete, free of rates, against the very persons from whom the rates are collected, is wrong and should be stopped.

"[t was on these grounds that the Ratepayers' Association gave support to a deputation of interested parties which waited on a committee of the City Council recently, objecting to the licensing of barrowmen, the colour and creed of the licensees having no bearing on the objection whatever."