THE NET RESULT.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XIV, Issue 852, 5 July 1906, Page 20

THE NET RESULT.

Now that the Licensing Committee meetings are over we have before us the net results so far as Auckland districts are concerned of the local option poll taken last December. In the Grey Lynn district no-license was carried, and consequently the only licensed house in the electorate the Eden Vine Hotel—has been closed. In the Manukau district, where a reduction vote was recorded, the minimum number of licenses as exacted by the Act, namely, two, have been extinguished. These are the Royal Hotel, Onehunga, and the Victoria Hotel, also in the Onehunga district. The only other district in the Auckland Province to record a vote against licenses existing as they were was the Eden Electorate. lhe voters in this district voted reduction, and in consequence the license of the New Lynn Hotel has been cancelled, leaving three licensed houses in the Eden Electorate. In the Grey Lynn district the no-license vote has resulted in the placing of the whole electorate under the ban of prohibition. What this means to the numerous inhabitants will be readily seen by a perusal of the Act as applied to prohibited areas, which we publish in full in another part of this issue. Possibly no district in the colony could have been selected where the absurdity of a no-license vote would be so strikingly obvious. The one and only licensed house was situate about a short stone’s throw from two large hotels that are within the city boundaries. The net result of this one house being closed is that the whole district is now prohibited area. The late patrons of the Eden Vine will have to walk a few yards further for their liquors, and the two city houses will reap the benefit of the closing of the Grey Lynn house, and will no doubt about equally share the trade that was done by this house. For this absurd state of affairs hundreds of people have been placed under the vexed ordinances of prohibition law. The Grey Lynn district stretches away for miles from the Eden Vine, and no doubt hundreds of the electors who voted no license have nevei’ seen the house, so that the matter of closing this house could not have been of any great moment to them. Possibly the lesson now taught to electors will have a good effect, and voters will pause before voting no-license or reduction. It is freely stated that many voted no-license without the significance of its full effect so far as their district was concerned dawning on them, and however desirable prohibition law may be in the eyes of extremists, there are many who are livng in the district who will chafe under the restrictions. In the Manukau district the closing of two houses- amounts to about the same thing as the closing of the Eden Vine, in so far as the late patrons of the two closed houses will have to walk a little further for their refreshments, as there other licensed houses in the same district, which will no doubt reap the benefit of the two being closed. Otherwise no harm has been done to the district. It had been thought possible to close the accommodation house at Miranda, and so save one of the fully licensed houses, but it was discovered that the cancelling of a license of that decription did not count as a reduction of licenses. Why it should not do so is not made abundantly clear, but this is according to the Act. In the New Lynn district the ' inhabitants will suffer most, as there are no other licensed houses nearer than from three to four miles of the New Lynn Hotel. Doubtless here again a lesson is read to voters, and many will take a more intelligent interest in their voting papers at the next local option poll.