NEW ACT RECEIVED WITH MIXED FEELINGS

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 156, 22 September 1927, Page 1

NEW ACT RECEIVED WITH MIXED FEELINGS

TOBACCONISTS JUBILANT NO RELIEF FOR SMALL SHOPKEEPERS BROUGHT forward after much deliberation and evidence, the new Shops and Offices Act has met with a mixed reception. Tobacconists hail it; small shopkeepers bewail it as perpetuating oppressive conditions. Milkmen may now begin their rounds at any hour. “TT’S the greatest win we've had, for -** it puts the sale of tobacco on a definite footing," said Mr. T. Samson, on behalf of the Tobacconists’ Association, this morning. The Bill makes it necessary for any shop stocking tobacco to close at tobacconists’ hours and only tobacconists have the right to vote on a requisition for hours. “We don’t wish to make tobacco a monopoly business, but we have to resist the after-hour traders. “If a shop stocks tobacco it will have to notify the Labour Department, and unless it has a separate entrance for other customers it will have to close down at the proper hour. The Bitll really hits some tobacconists just as much as it does the small shopkeeper who sells cigarettes.” “The Bill is no use to us. We looked for relief, but we have been shelved," said Mr. D. J. Kenny,

president of the Small Shop keepers' Association.

Mr. Kenny believed the small shopkeepers’ case would get a better hearing during the passage of the revised Bill through the House. The draft Bill gave them the right to appeal to a magistrate for exemption from the early closing hour, but the association had stood out for a statutory regulation.

The present hour was ruinous. People could not shop in * the suburbs after work for the time allowed to retailers would not allow of it. It was cencentrating business in the town shops and ruining the turnover of suburban retailers. The association objected to the wording of the Bill as to tobacco sales. It was an irksome restriction.

Milk roundsmen under the revised Act have all restrictions on the hours of beginning; work removed. The suggested 3 a.m. start was opposed by the Auckland milk roundsmen, who countered the suggestion with proposals for a 44-hour week of six days, but the attitude of the Minister, it is said, foreshadowed the clause now incorporated.

The Bill has also taken a middle course with regard to girl assistants in restaurants. The employers moved to have the present hour, 10.30 p.m., altered to 11, but the Hotel-workers’ union proposed a reduction to 9 oclpcg, hour then wag- unchanged.-