STATEMENT DENIED

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVII, Issue 23181, 20 April 1945, Page 2

STATEMENT DENIED

Conduct Of A Club (N.Z.P.A.) WELLINGTON, April 19. Evidence was given before the Royal Commission on Licensing to-day by Mr H. J. Shanks, secretary-manager or the Wellington Workingmen’s Club, to rebut statements made to the Commission on Monday by H. H. Thompson that breaches of the Licensing Act occurred daily in the club, which is chartered, that it was the worst run workingmen’s club in New Zealand and was a disreputable concern. Mr Shanks said he had been secre-tary-manager for 11 years. Thompson became a member in December, 1939, but had been suspended last year lor not returning a library book. Since then he had been on the club premises twice, once to deliver a letter and once to demand the right to enter the club. It was not true that it was common for 50 to 100 men to be drinking in the club when licensed premises were closed, said witness, and he denied that liquor was sold there after hours. The statement that there was drinking on Sundays was ridiculous. It was impossible lor liquor to be sold after hours, as Thompson had said. Witness explained the method of locking the bar and draining the pumps. With a membership of 1400 there were some men who wanted to drink surreptitiously after hours. They might procure it before 6 p.m. and hide it. The executive had done its utmost to prevent that, and during the last two years 11 members had been suspended for drinking liquor on the premises after hours and two had been asked for their resignations. Visits by the police were frequent, and on a recent visit several men had been found drinking after hours liquor purchased before 6 p.m. They would be the only prosecutions for that offence in which the club was involved since (ho Emergency Regulations were introduced.