FLIES AND FISH

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12614, 26 November 1926, Page 6

FLIES AND FISH

MAKING SHOPS SAFE BUTCHERS COMPLY, FISH SHOPS EXEMPT ! COUNCIL IS POWERLESS Though the City’s Health Departr mont has been carrying out a vigorous campaign to ensure that all butchers’ shops exclude the übiquitous fly, fish shops remain untouched. And they aro untouched because the city has no authority to demand that they follow the lines which the butchers have been forced to adopt. By regulations gazetted under the Public Health Act of 1.924, butchers’ shops are compelled to provide a system of ventilation to the satisfaction of the local authority. This system is preferably one in which openings communicate directly with the open air. Also a removable covering to openings and windows to exclude flies must be provided unless the meat itself is covered up, and a self-closing door or fly-proof covering to the doorway must be in existence. From these regulations, however, fish shops have been specially exempted. The civio authority gave the butchers twelve months to become acquainted with tho new law, and then held up the

annual lioense of all those who had not voluntarily complied with tho regulations. Butchers feel that to close their doors interferes with trad©, and where there is a constant stream of people in amd out of a shop the Health Department has taken a commonsenso attitude and not insisted that the door must be kept closed for tho few moments between each departure and arrival. Where empty shops are seen with their doors open, though, questions are asked at onee. The new conditions ruling in butchers’ shops have led the public to oxpect more, and yesterday it was learned that the Civio Health Department has had numerous complaints at the number of flies to be seen in fish shops, and the fact that there is no provision to keep them out or to cover the fish, such as is to bo seen in butchers’ shops nearby.