THE LOCAL OPTION BILL.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 188, 10 August 1877, Page 4

THE LOCAL OPTION BILL.

Leave having been grafted the Hon. W. Fo'x'tb introduce a measure for the further amendment of (he laws regulating the sale of intoxicatiug liquor, the Bill has now been introduced. It contains in all twenty-three clauses. Its provisions are a power vested in fiwentyjor more adult persons, male or female, residing within any licensing district, by. notice in writing to require the Chairman of t.he Licensing Court to define and declare a sub-district. Ev6ry licensed house is deemed the centre of the sub-district in which such house is situated. In Municipal boroughs the area of a sub-district shall include all bona fide inhabitants who reside, and shall have resided for' one month previous, within a radius of 100 yards from such centre. Beyond the limits of municipalities the radius is fixed at two-miles- measured at the centre, not- including any borough or part thereof. Immediately after the declaration of such sub-district, the Chairman of the Licensing Bench shall cause voting papers, to be distributed directing theinhabitants to say whether they are in favor of intoxicating liquors being sold in the sub-district, or if they are opposed to such sale. These voting papers are to be collected on the day appointed for the voting, and on theday immediately following the chairman is to declare whether the majority is in favor of the Act being brought into operation, At the expiry of three years, and on the requisition of fifty persons, the Chairman is to ta*ke the vote again. On tho prohibiting clause being brought into force, no certificate or license whatever shailbe granted or renewed, or transferred for the sale of alcholic liquor within such sub-district, and any person contravening the prohibition may be sent to prison for a period not less than fourteen days or more than six months, and the liquor may be seized and forfeited. The fees for working the Act «o be paid out of the license fees. In aoy .part of any licensing district which shall not have been constituted a sub-district, and where no poll shall have been taken ac aforesaid, or in any sub-district in which a poll averse to tbe introduction of this Act shall have been taken, it shall be lawful for any twenty persona resident within the distances before-mentioned from any house for which a license or renewal or transfer of license is applied for, to object in writing addressed to the Chairman, to the issue of any such license or transfer, and if there be not already a sub-district to require a aub-dietrict to be defined and declared in such manner as aforesaid, and it shall then be the duly of the Chairman, if 80 required, to define and declare' such sub-district, and to distribute voting papers among the residents of such sub-district, and to collect the same and take such poll as hereinbefore directed ; and in case the majority of the voters shall be against the issue of a license to the house referred to, then no license ehail be issued in respect ibereof. And no fresh application shall be entertained for a license for such house for the space of one year thereafter."