SIX O'CLOCK CLOSING

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3099, 1 June 1917, Page 4

SIX O'CLOCK CLOSING

FOR- WELLINGTON CHEMISTS. ,

A movement is afoot in Wellington among the pharmacists to adopt 6 o'.elock in tho evening as the closing hour on four davs of the week, instead of 8 p.m. as at present. The pinch of war has something to do with the proposal. Chemists, like other people, have for some time past felt tho drain on their stans, ' and owing to not being able to obtain skilled assistants as readily as heretofore find themselves shackled to their Shops from 8.30 a.m. to S p.m. In ijpmo cases they have even found it difficult to arrange reliefs for. meal hours. This, of course, has been brought about by the largo number of chemists and pharmaceutical students who havo joined tho colours. Tn order that the public may not bo unduly inconvenienced by tho proposed arrangement (which it is hoped will be brought about by a petition to tho Labour Department from a majority of the Wellington chemists), it is intended to follow the lines adopted in Christchureh, where the chemists havo combined in the establishment of a night pharmacy, so that, though tho chemists' shops be closed after G p.m., prescriptions can always be' made up at the night pharmacy. This idea lias worked quite satisfactorily for tho trade and the public in Christchureh for nearly three. years past, and no pharmacist would dream of going back to the old order. Similarly in Wauganui . and Napier night pharmacies havo -been established to ensure that the chemists shall have reasonable hours of employment and some homo life. It is understood that a majority of (lie chemists of Wellington have already acquiesced in the t-'ehome, and at an' early date application is to bo made to tho Labour Department to have the new hours declared and gazetted.