Barmen Defended On Age Question

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31079, 7 June 1966, Page 14

Barmen Defended On Age Question

"The Press” Special Service AUCKLAND, June 6. Barmen do not intentionally serve liquor to persons under age, says the secretary of the New Zealand Hotel Workers’ Federation, Mr G. Armstrong.

Mr Armstrong was replying to Mrs R. M. Stevenson, M.P. for Taupo, who said in Parliament on Friday that barmen should sometimes be more

selective when serving young people and that she wondered whether youths of questionable age should be required to produce proof of their age.

“Why blame the barmen?” asks Mr Armstrong. “They do not serve under-age persons intentionally.

“Lay the blame where It belongs, on the employer for his failure to provide adequate supervision in his bars; on the under-age person who insists on frequenting hotel bars.

“The present sit-down system of drinking lends itself to abuse, particularly in jug bars,” he said. “The barman serves a customer with a jug or jugs of beer for a party of four or five, but he does not see who are in the party.

“Mrs Stevenson is a member of a party which has failed to give consideration to the recommendations of the New Zealand Hotel Workers’ Federation concerning this vexatious question. “We suggested reducing the age from 21 to 19—the age for drinking in Britain—or increasing the penalties for under-age persons found on licensed premises. “We also recommended more adequate supervision of hotel bars.”