PUBLIC HOUSES.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2621, 31 August 1882, Page 2

PUBLIC HOUSES.

Wk suppose by this time that the Licensing Committees for the several districts in Christchurch have discovered the grave mistake made by them at their June meeting in extending the privilege of midnight licenses to some half-dozen houses only. In former articles on this subject we strongly advocated that all the licensed houses should stand on an equal footing, and we failed to see why unfair partiality should be shown to certain few houses in the trade. It is well known that the proprietors who have been so favored are not by any means pleased at the action taken by the several Committees. The steady respectable trade which they had previously enjoyed has been ruthlessly and unthankfolly interfered with after the hour of tea o’clock in the evening. We confess that it is a deplorable and an unedtfying sight to see hordes of what are generally known as “ good drinking men ” turned out of their usual haunts to invade the quieter and more respectable houses of business at ten o’clock, and to become a nulsanca and a scandal to the larger and better conducted hotels, simply because the bars are open for two Lours later. We have ourselves noticed, and indeed it is notorious, that considerable numbers of hard, steady drinkers when turned out at ten o’clock of their usual public-houses mat® straight £ir the nearest hotel which enjoys the privilege of selling strong drink until midnight. The licensees thus favored are overrun with a rowdy and an unprofitable class of customers patronage they confess.

they would bo better without. "We hope that the committees at their next quarterly meetings will amend this monstrous scandal, and so put an end to what we can only designate as a most unfair and disgraceful state of things.