LICENSING WITH A LIGHT HEART. The Police Inspector Ignored

Free Lance, Volume II, Issue 102, 14 June 1902, Page 8

LICENSING WITH A LIGHT HEART. The Police Inspector Ignored

INSPECTOR Ellison's opinion as to whether certain specified local hotels should be improved or le-bmlt is of no account. The Wellington Licensing Committee decided that by entirely ignoiing his leport He sa,id that all the veiy old wooden hotel buildings in. Wellington are a source of danger from fire And he mentioned several other things which aie perfectly true The Committee, probably to show their appreciation of the care Mi Ellison had expended on his inspection, bunched all those buildings togethei, took not the slightest trouble to find out anything about them and renewed the licenses ' * * t They made no conditions They simply gave the licensees permission to carry on business until next meeting m buildings that, m many instances, the public know to be lamshackle and unsafe He would be a bold man who would say that the old Onental Hotel building was anything but a death-trap It was burnt to the giound last yeai with such rapidity that the inmates escaped with the utmost difficulty Some of them were maimed by jumping from the ■windows, and one life was lost In the light of that bitter experience, surely it is the duty of the Licensing Committee to give the greatest weight to any representations of a responsible officer upon buildings of an insecure class like the Oriental ? Will the Committee s cavahci tieatment of Mi Ellison encourage him to prepare careful repoits m the futuie? He might have saved himself the trouble of visiting those hotels The result would have been the same If the public-house industry were a struggling one, requnmg the fostering care of the Licensing Bench, one could undei stand the position the Committee take up, but, repiesentmg as it does a combination of New Zealand's wealthiest men, it is hard to understand why they should be absolved from the unpleasantness of expending money m necessaiy improvements * ■* -•■ These old wooden hostelries with their narrow passages and imperfect means of escape, are distinctly dangerous Their wall spaces form the finest flues possible, and fire escapes fixed to wea-

thoiboaids aic nearly always useless The buildings specified are not only wooden, some of them ais ramshackle and as inflammable as tinolei Why should they be allowed to cunibei the ground foi even one ycai ? Fae may effect a great deal oi haim, and destroy a good many lives even in that short time Yet, the Licencing Committee assume that the hotels are quite up-to-date by renewing the licenses unconditionally * * • It is vitally interesting to the whole of the community that the hotels should not be death-traps Naturally, some licensees are entirely unconcerned as to the accommodation m their houses, and the Committee evidently share their unconcern. The bar trade is looked after, and the rest may go hang. The renewal of licenses for houses which are notonously unsafe, have poor accommodation, and are sadly out of repair, without enforcing conditions of any kind, is discreditable to the Licensing Committee, a menace to the people, and ceitamly an insult to the repoxi> ing inspector.