PRICE OF BEER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26996, 3 February 1949, Page 6

PRICE OF BEER

LICENSEES CHARGED BREACH OF ORDER ALLEGED DEFENDANTS QUESTION VALIDITY PA AUCKLAND, Feb. 2. The licensees of four Auckland hotels appeared before Mr J. Morling, S.M., charged with selling draught beer at a price which did not conform with the price order. The charges were brought under the Control of Prices Act, 1947, and related to the sale of lOoz handles of a popular southern beer at 7d instead of the regulation price of 6d. All the defendants pleaded not guilty. They were William Kilpatrick Ballantine, licensee of the Windsor Castle Hotel, Parnell; John Naughton Clarke, licensee of the Shamrock Hotel, Wellesley street; Mary Prances Nation, licensee of the Occidental Hotel, Vulcan lane; and John Charles Griffin, licensee of the Oxford Hotel, Victoria street. Mr Rosen, who prosecuted, said that on October 5 an inspector of the Department of Industries and Commerce called on each of the defendants and asked for a glass of the southern beer. The glasses were measured, and were found to contain lOoz. The price charged for each glass was 7d, instead of 6d, as laid down in the price order for a glass containing less than 12oz of draught beer. Mr Rosen claimed that the defendants knew the correct price was 6d, as each had written to the director of the Price Tribunal in Auckland asking for suspension of the price order for lOoz containers in their case, and they had been told that they must comply with it. Mr White, for one, defendant, said the case was not one in which hotelkeepers were charging an excessive price to obtain extra money. They sold a particular brand of southern beer from the taps, and they had reached the stage where the sale of that beer was so unprofitable that they might have to change to the. local product, and the right of the ordinary man to choose his own brand of beer was being taken away from him. Coming from the south, the beer in question was subject to charges that were not involved in the sale of the local product. Mr White continued that freight had to be paid over a long distance, and sediment in the southern beer affected the quantity which could be sold from a cask. The uncertainty of shipping meant that a publican selling the southern beer had to keep a bigger stock than a publican handling local beer. The southern Mer had very little “ head,” so that it filled the glass, and this was not the case with other brands. Mr White claimed that a large section ,of the public would rather pay an extra penny for the southern beer. No provision for that was made in the new order. The defence rested in an alleged defect in the price order, Mr White said. It specified that if the beer sold came out of the original bottle or other container the maximum price charged was 7d, but if a cask came within the meaning of “ other container,” then the defendants had not committed an offence. Casks and bottles were the only containers used to despatch beer from the breweries to hotels. On January 13- the Pr«£e Tribunal cancelled the order under which the prosecutions had been brought, and in a subsequent order omitted the words “or other container.” Since then the defendants had been selling beer in 10-ounce handles for the regular price of 6d - , , „ 4 Mr Terry, for another defendant, submitted that by omitting the words “or other container” the authorities recognised that the order was_ open to argument or doubt. He considered that the merits very strongly in favour of the defendants.” The magistrate reserved his decision.