THE APPEAL OF THE LICENSED VICTUALLERS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 8419, 16 February 1889, Page 3

THE APPEAL OF THE LICENSED VICTUALLERS.

TO THE EDITOR.

Sib,—The letter of Mr J. Wells, secretary of the Licensed Victuallers' Association, to the exhibition commissioners is mischievously misleading. Mr Wells asserts that the action of the prohibitionists, if successful, would have the effect of closing the hotels during the exhibition period. This is pure nousense, as the slightest amount of reflection will serve to show. The prohibitionists seek only to prohibit the sale of liquor, and do not desire in any way to interfere with legitimate hotel business, which liquorselling is not. The hotels will be just as ready to receive boarders under prohibition as under license, and the boarders will receive better attention than they do now in many houses. Mr Wells says that on Cup days, &c. the hotel accommodation is barely sufficient in this city. Well, this i 3 probably true, since it is well known that many so-called hotels are really mere drinking shops, and are not furnished ! behind the bar parlour. In a city where the most profitable hotel business is done in a temperance hotel (I refer to the Leviathan), it is not credible that the prohibition of the sale of liquor will close the hotel doors to visitors. The mere suggestion of such a thing is absurd,— I am, &c, Dunedin, February 15. St. George.