ROTORUA TOWN HALL

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22165, 19 July 1935, Page 12

ROTORUA TOWN HALL

"THEATRE PERMIT SOUGHT APPLICATION BY MAYOR [bt telegraph—OWN correspondent] ROTORUA, Thursday A letter from a Rotorua theatre company asking whether or not the Rotorua Borough Council had made an application to the Department of Internal Affairs for a theatre building permit was received by the council last night. The Mayor, Mr. T. Jackson, said the council had not, but that he had made a tentative application. He said he recently discovered, just prior to his departure from Wellington on a holiday trip abroad, that if the council desired to use the new Town Hall, concerning which he later intended submitting proposals, for the purpose of showing films, it must put in an application for a permit at once. As he considered that the council's best means of recompensing itself for the cost of the building was to use it for a picture theatre when it was not otherwise required, he decided to lodge a tentative application. He did so just before his ship sailed and he had no time to obtain the authority of the council. However, it had been clearly understood that the application was tentative until the opinion of the council had been obtained.

Mr. E. T. Johnson pointed out that the Mayor's proposal for the erection of a town hall and municipal buildings had been rejected by the previous council, and that the matter could not be reopened until six months had elapsed since that decision. On the motion of Mr. Johnson, the council decided to take no action in the matter until six months had elapsed. The Mayor closed the discussion by remarking that he would make a personal application for a permit.