HOTEL LICENSE DATES FROM DAYS OF FLOOD.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17864, 4 June 1926, Page 15

HOTEL LICENSE DATES FROM DAYS OF FLOOD.

OHINEMURI LISTENS TO PAEkoA STORIES. (Special to the “Star.”) AUCKLAND, June 3. Claims for precedence in tne granting of licenses were freely piaced before the Ohinemuri Licensing Commit tee at its first sitting at Paeroa yesterday. Many applicants sought to establish their rights to preference as provided in the Licensing Act Amendment of 3910, but as the committee may exercise its powers to grant only the minimum of seven licenses for the district precedence was urged in sev eral ways. One of these was the antiquity of the licenses held by some of the houses before the carrying of nolicense in 1908. It was claimed on behalf of the Royal Mail Hotel at Paeroa that although the house was r.o longer existent, the license was the oldest in Paeroa, having originally been located at Puke. The applicant, Mrs C. V. Crosby, said the license was at Puke before the Maoris allowed white people to come to what is now known as Paeroa. On behalf of the Criterion Hotel, Paeroa, it was stated the license dated from the earliest davs of the goldfields. Mr E. J. Clendon asserted that the first license of the Commercial Hotel, Paeroa, was housed about fifty years ago in a building about a hundred yards from the present premises. “ I thought 1 represented the oldest license in Paeroa,’ he said, “ but others have made the claim. I can say, however, that it goes back to the flood.” A murmur of astonishment greeted this remarkable claim, and counsel hastened to explain that he meant the Ohinemuri flood. A big flood occurred about fifty years ago and the explanation was received with laughter and certain signs of relief on the part of opposing counsel, who gained further satisfaction frem a remark of the chairman, Mr J. H. Salmon, S.M., that floods had occurred much more recently. Some of the Waihi licenses are mere infants compared to these Paeroa ancients. Counsel for one of the Waihi applicants sought to repair his disadvantage b-» r asserting that he laid no claim to antiquity which, after all, probably suggested buildings which had long since outlived their period of usefulness and no longer had claims