THE LICENSING COMMITTEE.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume VI, Issue 583, 14 February 1882, Page 2

THE LICENSING COMMITTEE.

To the Editor,

Sir, —Nominations of persons to form a Licensing Committee for the Borough must be made by noon on Friday ; and, time being so short, I trust immediate steps will be taken towards bringing forward reliable men. Hitherto all our Commiteemen (save the li.M.) have been (nonresidents, and . therefore not intimately concerned in the Borough's welfare as : regards the number and control of hotels in town. The new Act having given us the privilege of electing our own Commisioners, it is to be hoped that the majority if not all, will be chosen from our midst, since those who see and suffer from the evils arising from the too numerous drinking establishments, are the most likely to exercise a wholesome control over the liquor trade. In my opinion candidates should be men who would favor the following programme : —(a.) Reduction in the number of hotels, either by cancellation of license for misconduct, or extinction by compensation where first course does not present itself, (b.) Rigorous enforcement of prescribed hours for selling liquor; with heavy penalty for breach,and forfeiture of license on second conviction within 12 months, (c.) No license to be granted after 10 p.m. (d.) Licensees, on, or issuing from whose premises, are found persons the worse for liquor, to be severely dealt with ; more especially where drinkers have been allowed to hang about for days, (c.) Gambling and other illegal practices to be severely dealt with.

By electing a strong committee holding some such views as above, the liquor trade may be got under and controlled, and we shall no longer be scandalised by seeing in broad daylight, drunken men laid by the road-t>ide, or but a few feet from it, to recover ; or the front doors of hotels bolted and barred on Sunday, and the establish-

ment looking all respectaoility in front, whilst the back doors are flung open to a larger business than ever, or hearing a publicans' uproarious shout of laughter at the fun created by his inciting a hanger-on to heave buckets of water, in the public street, over a drunken unfortunate, just led out of his hotel, or lastly, irunken men calling at one's house as early as ten o'clock on a Sunday morning begging for money to prolong their spree. I Bincerely hope electors will take an interest in the election, and put in reliable men, which done, there will doubtless be in the course of a year or two great moral improvement; and, as an accompaniment, increased prosperity in the community generally.—Yours, etc.. W. 11. HENNING.