LICENSED HOUSES.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVII, Issue 4938, 12 February 1926, Page 2

LICENSED HOUSES.

FINANCIAL ASPECT IN OHINEMURI

MATTERS FOR CONSIDERATION.

Dealing with the matter of financing the building of hotels in Ohinemuri the Waihi "Telegraph” says “Those to whom licenses will be granted next June will have to rely upon their own resources for the. building and equipment of .the hotels or alternatively seek monetary assistance from the brewers or private persons with capital for investment. Where licensed premises are to be provided in growing farming districts or at Paeroa, which in the course of a few years will become an important railway junction, money will no doubt readily be found, but in the case of Waihi and Wajkino the raising of the necessary capital may not prove an easy matter. "The erection and furnishing of two hotels in Waihi— allowing that arrangements can be ma,de for the remodelling. of the Rob Roy—and one at Waikino would mean an expenditure of about £30,000, and it remains to be seen whether investors, sceptical as to the life of the mining industry, will be prepared to 'risk so large an outlay. Further, there is to be considered the shrinkage in population, especially in Wajhi, and the probable effect on receipts with 6 o’clock closing. Before no-license came »in the inhabitant®' of the town numbered 7000, and there were four licensed houses with .the closing hour at 10 p.m. There are now but 4000 people in Waihi, and the spending power per capita is certainly not greater than in pre-war times. Against the shrinkage in population within the borough there may be offset the growth of the farming industry during the past few years, with room for considerable expansion ahead, and the fact that twelve months hence Waihi will be linked up by rail with Katikati and be no longer a ‘dead end,’, but these gain®' will not fully compensate for the los 3 ' in the town population.