THE NEW LICENSING BILL.

Evening Star, Issue 4127, 19 May 1876, Page 4

THE NEW LICENSING BILL.

A copy] of the proposed new Licensing Act, published by the Canterbury Licensed Victuallers, is before us. Instead of aiming to be a new and complete {measure, it includes and is to be read with Mr Fox’s Act of 1873, and all amendments of the same. It proposes no less tlian nine diffo ent kinds of licenses, viz. 'The general license, costing L7o per annum, the holders to sell alcoholic liquors in any quantity on the premises specified; the. hotel license, cost ing L3O per annum, is granted in the case of hotels providing accommodation for lodgers ; the wine and beer license, costing LlO per annum, authorises the occupier of a luncheon room to supply wine and beer to people taking luncheon or dinner. The other proposed licenses are the bush license, the packet license, the wholesale license, the brewers’ license, the temporary license, and the general night license, which, save the last, need not be more particularly specified. With respect to this “ general night license ” there is much confusion. In one part of the bill such a license only provides that the house can Ire kept open till midnight, whereas in the schedule of fees payable two kinds of general night licenses are specified, one being up to midnight and costing L 5, while the other, entitled “ a general night license for the whole night,” costs L2O. As the interpretation of the term “General Night License *' i? plainly stated in the Bill as being the rigid to keep a house open to midnight only, it is ditiicnlt to understand why ices are proposed to be charged for two kinds of licenses under this head. The clauses with reference to Sunday closing are absolutely contradictory : No publican shall keep open his publichouse, or seller supply any alcoholic liquors, or suffer the same to be drunk in or upon iiia public-house on Sunday. And if any publican shall offend against the provisions >f this section ho shall be liable to a penalty mt exceeding £ . Provided that the holders of a hotel license or bus a license may supply liquors to any person who shall be a bo d li lti 1 dger in nis public-house, havng a befi provided for him therein, or who shall be a ooud fide traveller having no place of residence within a distance of three miles by road from his pubiichouse. This is plain enough. The clause enacts that there is to be no liquor whatever sold on any part of Sunday save to lodgers or bond fide travellers, and that the publican will be liable to a fine for infringing the law. Vet the very next clause runs—- ■ t shall be lawful for the holder of a general license, hotel license, or a bush license, to keep open some door of his public house not being the front door or his bar door, between the hours of one o’clock and three o’clock in the afternoon, and between the hours of eight o’clock and tea o’clock in the evening of Sundays, for the sale of alcoholic liquors. This ‘section shall not apply to holders of packet licenses. if it were meant that hotels should be legally open during certain specified hours, the fact should have been stated in the clause first quoted. What nonsense it is to declare in one clause that it is illegal to sell liquor at all, at any hour, on Sunday, save to , lodgers or h.nd fide travellers, and in the next to declare that it is legal to sell during certain specified hours. We agree with the ‘ Post ’ that the Bill as a whole “has been most loosely and carelessly drafted, is confused and cumbrous, and will require to be entirely reconstructed before it will serve its intended purpose. It is illconceived, ill-arranged, ill-compiled, and illdrafted. In short, it is as imperfect a Bill as could well be conceived.” However, it is to be considered at a conference of delegates to be held in Wellington next mouth, and we hope the collective wisdom of the licensed victuallers will be able to devise something better than the draft Bill before us.