CLOSING OF HOTEL BARS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 43, 15 November 1918, Page 6

CLOSING OF HOTEL BARS

A VERY DIFFICULT QUESTION

Strong protest, was made by the Hon. G Jones in the Legislative Council yesterday "against the hotel bars being allowed to remain open whilst the epidemic is in progress." He had been watching what had been going on in the last tew davs and he maintained that the hotels were nothing but "mere drinkenes tending only to the demoralisation ot the public. "At a time like Hi s. he added "we should be sober and seriousminded, and in possession of our faculties so as properly to bo able to light, the scourge which is devastating our population." The Hon. -W. Earnshaw cordially agreed with what Mr. Jones had said. In these days when they were stopping traffic from tho North Cape to Hie Bluit owing to the seriousness of the situation, 'it was only right and proper that, tho hotels, places for habitual drinking, should be closed. The atmosphere in the bars was sultry to a degree, and waa conducive to the spread of the disease. The Hon. T. Mac Gibbon also supported rfhat the two previous speakers had said. In his district (Dunedin) on the day that news of the armistice was published, numbers of young men participated m what was their idea of enjoyment, and others .persisted in supplying drink to returned soldiers who wero not in a tit condition to partake of it. The Leader of the Council (Sir 1 rands Bell) s-iid Hu Government had just taken powers conferred by the Public Health Act to close publichouses. .i\o ona would accuse him of sympathy with publichousos, or the bars, but he desired to point out that .there vis another asp»ct of the question. The powers Jint Parliament had conferred must not be misused. They must not be used to stop drinking-they could only lie .used to stop the concoursing of people. I hat should be clearly understood. He would be no party to using the powers of ths Pubjic Health Act for the purpose of pi/venting people from indulging m alcoholic liquor, however much he might sympathise with those who had spoken on the subject. The matter was one possessing great difficulty, but he had no doubt the Minister of Public Health would exercise his powers quite fearlessly, and if on medical advice it appeared that the assembling of people in the bars of publichouses was exceptionally likely to cause the spread of the disease he would close them without hesitation. If there were complaints about the hotels, the question of marble Iwrs hud to be taken into consideration also, Tor large numbers of people wero in the habit of frequenting those places. The matter WB3 not so simple as it at first appeared. They had to regard it not from the point of view of thinking that it might be well to close the drinking places, bat from the standpoint as to how the gathering of concourses of people could be stopped.