TOBACCO AFTER HOURS

Hokitika Guardian, 27 January 1928, Page 1

TOBACCO AFTER HOURS

(Christchurch “Star.") Smokers are not likely to be perturbed by the Government decision to compel all shops selling tobacco to clo-.e at the same hour as- tobacconists. They will doubtless think that laws am! regulations have been bi-ole n in tinpast. and can tie broken in tbe liiturwith impunity. Hut they sitould sci a tini.se this latest regulation close*/ because its effect may be drastic, in an endeavour to stop the after-hou v s sale of tobaccj (which is general) it fhreathens to drive certain tradesmen out of the tobacco business altogether and to put fiesli restric-tiois on th - sale of a much greater necessity than ice-cream, chocolates or the hundred and one things that may be purchase , up till midnight every day in the week. The principle is not general, and is not even applied to the sale of intoxi eating liquors, because wine and spirit merchants are permitted to remain open for hours after the hotels have closed. Nobody would have the temcity to suggest that grocers i-bould forgo their late night because hotels close at six o’clock, or that chemists slu'ii’d be forbidden to open on Sundays be cause they stock soap or insect powder.

but that is .the principle underlying the tabacco regulations. New <- oil laud wants an extension rather than a restriction of the hours for selling tobacco. Great Britain has eight o'clock closing in this parti -uhir case, but even that is a survival <>t a " 1U time prohibition, and it lib* • go overboard a 1 any minute.