LATE NIGHTS IN SHOPS.

Thames Star, Volume LIX, Issue 16623, 20 October 1925, Page 6

LATE NIGHTS IN SHOPS.

ABOLITION ASKED FOR. EMPLOYERS CONSIDER EXTENSION NEEDED. That there is a general movement among employers and tho public to extend the hour of closing from 8.30 to 9 o’clock on late nights in Christchurch was the assurance given at a Conciliation Council sitting when tho grocers’ dispute was heard. Mr. C. Renn ,for the union, said that the union was asking for hours from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on five days of the week and 8 a.m. to noon on Saturdays. That would do away with the late night and it was only a matter of educating tho public to shop within the hours.

Mr. W. C. Prime (employers’ representative) : I am very pleased to hear Mr. Renn’s remarks on the education of the shopping public and the abolition of the late night. But Mr. Renn is not in touch with the public*, for he would know /of the movement which is to extend tlie hour of closing on late nights instead of doing away with it. In the days gone past, shops were open till nil hours of the night, but although the hours have been curtailed without any effect on business that in no basis for argument that hours should go on being curtailed ad lib. If they are, the time must come when we will have to call a halt, for we will have no hours whatever. That is the logical conclusion. Air. Renn: Illogical, you mean. Mr. Prime: You make the basis of your arguments that hours have been cut down already. I ask you “When are you going to stop?” The effect is that among the public and the employers concerned there is a very strong feeling that the late night should not only be retained but tlie extra halfhour as formerly should be added. We don’t, however, propose an increase from the 4S-liour week; the half hour on late night would lie deducted from tlie other days; but we want grocers to keejj open till 9 p.m. on Friday night. The closing at 8.30 p.m. has resulted in inconvenience to the grocers and their assistants and the public as well. If you look into the grocers’ shops at 8.30 p.m. you will find people rushing in, an assistant at the door, people waiting for their goods and going out in dibs and dabs. Mr. W. H. Hagger (Commissioner) : But if you 'opened till 10 p.m., you would still find that. Mr. Prime: Whatever the effect is as regards that, the shopkeepers can’t deal satisfactorily with the business in the time,

Mr. Renn: It means that people go without their stuff. AIV. Prime: it means that there is a bigger rush on Saturday. Mr. Renn: One can well remember when the butchers’ shops, in London closed at 12 p.m. It matters not wliat time the shops close but the public will come along at the last moment —no as it is the particular time, but because it is the last moment. Certainly we ask for a reduction of hours. But "to say because we got tin; reduction, we will asl* for further reductions is. not spoken seriously. Mr. Prime: I stated that the argument that hours have been reduced is not sound. Air. Renn: But the reduction of hours in the past has not resulted in any great inconvenience. Mri Prime: You admit inconvenience. althougn not a great inconvenience. Air. Renn :I do not. He added that the public were always late with their shopping; they should ho educated to shop early still further. The plaint of the union was perfectly sound and most of tho employers individually were agreeable to it.