BUTCHER’S SHOP CLOSED

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24895, 7 June 1946, Page 4

BUTCHER’S SHOP CLOSED

SUPPLIES NOT MADE AVAILABLE

ACTION BY' RATIONING CONTROLLER (P.A.) WELLINGTON, June 5. “This shop is closed by order of the Fopd Controller,” said a notice written across the window of A. E. Preston, Ltd-, one of the busiest butchery establishments in Courtenay place, yesterday. Below the notice was written: “We regret we could not give our customers reasonable notice.” The Food Controller (Mr A. J. Costelloe) said he had not actually ordered the shop to be closed, but his department had simply refused to make any more meat available to the shop for the current period because insufficient coupons had been returned by the-management. A similar situation had arisen in Christchurch recently, he said, involving several shops, one of which was closed for a .day or two, the others managing to carry on with small goods. The position with these shops, he added, was that either they had failed to collect coupons or they were making up an excessive quantity of small goods allowed to be sold coupon free. As part of the campaign for the enforcement of the rationing laws, the Ministry of Supply has prosecutions in train throughout New Zealand against suppliers, retailers, and other parties.

“Numerous prosecutions are pending throughout the Dominion,” said an official of the Ministry of Supply, replying to questions about the food ratiorring regulations. These, he said, were chiefly against persons accused of breaches of the Meat Rationing Regulations. Twelve were set down for hearing shortly in Wellington, and others were due for hearing In several provincial centres within the Wellington area and further afield.

The Food Controller, confirming these statements, said his department was maintaining fully its vigilance against offenders. Purchasers should realise, he said, that when they pressed their burtchers for meat without coupons or for extra supplies they simply were putting them mto difficulties. After all, said Mr Costelloe, it took two to commit an offence, and the customer was just as much responsible as the butcher.

The secretary of the Master Butchers’ Industrial Union of Employers (Mr W. J. Mountjoy) said concern was expressed at the monthly meeting of the union at the action of the Food Controller. The matter, he said, was being looked into with a view to some action being taken.

PROSECUTIONS PENDING IN AUCKLAND

(P.A.) AUCKLAND, June 5. Several prosecutions are pending against Auckland butchers for breaches or the meat rationing regulations, according to an official of the Food Controller’s Auckland office. The cases were being brought against firms in the city, suburbs, and province as part of the campaign to tighten the regulations.

“People must realise that the saving of coupons for Britain is a self-sacri-fice,” he said. Some were going into butchers’ shops saying that they had given their coupons to the famine emergency campaign, and expecting butchers to sell them meat without surrendering coupons. No shops have Been closed in Auck--I»n - •