THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC IN DUNEDIN.
To the Editor. M* Bathgatp carries out his threat to grant no renewal of license to any public®ll known to sell liquor on Sundays, there will not be many publicans’ licenses} granted on the 2lsb. It is well seen M r Bathgate is not much in town on Sundays, or he would not have expressed so much surprise as he . at the possibility of a man obtaining drink on that day. It is well known that many of the publicans in Dunedin look upon unday as one of their best days. I have seen a woman carrying a jug of beer leaving a hotel in George street on Sunday morning while the bells were ringing for church, and a man going home with a like beverage when people have been returning from worship. I now a house recently licensed which was opened in dependence on a Sunday and holiday business, and before it was open a month there were scenes of drunkenness m the neighborhood on Sundays suoh as I believe were never seen there--1 bouts before, either on Sunday or week day • )nly last Sabbath I myself saw a man commg from that very house with a jug of or porter ; and a neighbor saw drink brought three times from that hotel to one house nearby, in which was enacted a scene of drunkenness which disgraced alike our proIfessed Christianity and our civilization, t can tell you of janother house, the occupant of which boasts of taking from L 5 to L 7 on a
Sunday. This represents 200 to 400 drinks. Of another where the bar is lighted up as brightly, and ip which the nor-e of business is as great on Sunday as any other evening of the week. But, indeed, the difficulty would be, 1 believe, to find the houses in which the business is not done, rather than those in which it is. On Sunday, evening last the people going from church down Princes street were annoyed and endangered by meeting gthree men reeling drunk, while after a group of five or six yor.ng men might be seen coming the other wav, evidently far gone under the influence of drink. The police must be aware of all thi >, but when did we ever hear of a prosecution for the breach of the Sunday clause of the Licensing Ordinance ? Lam glad to see that Mr Bathgate has had his attention so timeously directed to the matter, and hope that Ilia efforts to abate the evil of Sunday liquor trading will be well supported by his brother Commissioners, If the Sabbath traffic is stopped, there are some houses I could name that will not have much business left. Situated on the outskirts of the City, where there is no ordinary traffic and no possible demand for hotel accommodation proper, these houses are like the one mentioned above, solely dependent on a Sunday aud holiday business, and on such traffic as can bo induced by skittle-alleys, bagatelle and billiard-tables, etc., to which men are attracted to play, in order that they may be induced to drink. In this latter respect, however, the houses on the outskirts of the City" do not differ from those in the centre. They all alike have, their inducements ,to unnecessary and excessive drinking.’ It is.', only by the successful operation of these and such like agencies that the citizens of Dunedin can be induced to spend the L2OO.PQO per annum necessary to keep its I3C grog-shops open,—l am. &0., A Ratepayer. Dunedin, March 7.
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Evening Star, Issue 3471, 8 April 1874, Page 3
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596THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC IN DUNEDIN. Evening Star, Issue 3471, 8 April 1874, Page 3
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