TO PREVENT BEER-HAWKING.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XVIII, Issue 1053, 12 May 1910, Page 21

TO PREVENT BEER-HAWKING.

It will be remembered (says the L.V. Gazette of last month), that at the Brighton Conference of the Licensed Victuallers’ Defence League, the delegates came to the conclusion that • legislation was needed to stop the growing practice of beer-hawking, and it was left to the secretary and manager to draft a Bill for presentation to the House of Commons. This has now been done but, of course, there will be no chance for it this session. Expensive prosecutions have been undertaken without securing a conviction and it is quite clear that the law will have to be strengthened before this evil can be put down. What Parliament, therefore, will be asked to do is to’make it illegal for any person to canvass for intoxicating liquor in less quantities than four and a half gallons of beer and to prohibit the holding by a brewer, wholesale dealer, or brewery employee of a beer dealers’ additional off-license in respect of the premises occupied by or forming pai t of the brewery. The Bill which Mr. Robinson has drafted is sufficiently comprehensive to cover all the points; the only question is whether it is not a little too drastic. For instance, it is stated that if the holder of the beer dealers’ additional retail license has knowingly failed to comply with the conditions set forth “the Licensing Justices shall refuse to renew such license.” Would it not be better to give them power to refuse to renew? The Bill is not to apply to Ireland and Scotland.