SMALL SHOPKEEPERS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16330, 20 January 1921, Page 7

SMALL SHOPKEEPERS.

A GRADUAL CLOSING UP. SCOPE OF NEW ACT. No prosecutions are likely to take place for a week or two in respect of small shopkeepers who keep open alter six o’clock. At present the staff of tho Labour Department are spending a uood many evenings per week visiting these suburban stores and informing them ot tlie provisions of the Act. Tlie Act of Inst session compels all shops to dost? at six o’clock with tho following exceptions:- Bakers, butchers:, chemists, confectioners. dairy produce dealers, fishmongers, fruiterers, hairdressers, news agents, cork butchers, tobacconists, florists. These businesses, however, must lie exclusive. For instance, 1 there is hnrdlv any shop m Christchurch that, could bo called a news agent exclusively. Most of the news agencies cam' on a bookselling and fancy business of some sort, and Ahey come under the closing lav. It is the little grocery business in the suburbs that will feel tho pinch, because many of them have built up a business on their evening trade, which depends upon what local residents want in a hurry or have forgotten to order from the bigger grocers. Many of the«e small grocers are still keeping open after six o’clock, ami whqn informed that they are breaking the Act they reply that so-and-so is. still keeping open. However, they will all have to close. Even as it is. thev will get. an extra half-hour Over tho central grocers’ ships, which are now closing at 5.50 on four days of the week, in accordance with the terms of the grocers* assistants’ award, and at c .ot) on Friday night.

Not- much isvmpntrhy seems to he felt- for the small one man shoi/keepers seeing that the bm firms arc obliged to close so early. But a gentleman connected with the Labour T>er>artjnent expresses the opinion that the small shonkeepers will find that things will readjust themselves ns soon as local people realise that it. is convenient to keep a small shop going in tlieir vicinity. lt Generally sneaking m New Zealand,” he said, tc the lifcile man seems to got a better chance from the people generally.” The closing law applies to the whole of Christchuroll and the suburbs, but not to Sumner and New Brighton. In the Act the combined district of Christchurch is defined as “ all boroughs and town districts, anv one which is within a mile of any other,” but. Sumner and New Brighton aro speciallv exempted.

One objection to the one-man suburban grocer’s shop was voiced in two places during the course of a reporter's inquiries yesterday. It was stated that some of these shopkeepers practise a form of child slavery by keeping their children on the hop from morning fill night or after school hours delivering parcels. .