LOOKING FOR RELIEF

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 267, 1 February 1928, Page 15

LOOKING FOR RELIEF

SHOPKEEPERS HIT BY LEGISLATION BIG FALL, IN BUSINESS While the operation from to-day of the Shops and Offices Amendment Act, 1927, will afford a loophole for the relief of hundreds of small shops throughout the Dominion, other business will be severely penalised by the enforcement of the closing hours provisions. Investigations have revealed that some hundreds of proprietors o* small suburban shops have sought jobs and left their wives to attend the meagre trading over the counter. It is authentically recorded that in some suburbs the takings in small shops have fallen from £2,000 annually to the £3OO and £4OO mark, mainly through the increasing tendenev toward city shopping. Upon this subject the president of the New Zealand Small Shopkeepers’ Association, Mr. D. J. Kenny, of Dominion Road, Auckland, is emphatic. He mentions ihe disparity between the selling conditions of the suburban and the city shops, and says that immediate advantage will be taken of the new Act to apply for exemption from the hours restriction law which has been in force for the past three years, and which is responsible for the slackness in the business of the small trader. In Dominion Road, locality alone three shops have closed their doors within the past month, and there are now a score of empty places which once flourished in their modest sh«re ►of the general trading. A secondhand dealer, a fancy goods shopkeeper and a cake and small goods seller are the three latest to give up the struggle. HUNDREDS WANT RELIEF Relief is hoped for from the Shops and Offices Act, but even then magistrates will be faced with a problem when they are called upon to deal with hundreds upon hundreds of applications from shopkeepers who wish to remain open till 7 o’clock and S o’clock in the evening. If these small gjhops are allowed to remain open, assistants will finish at the usual award hours, and the business will have to be conducted by the proprietors themselves. Those who possibly will suffer by the new Act are the shops which sell cigarettes., fruit and like commodities as side lines. Nothing happens with the immediate enforcement of the Act, but if a requisition is signed by twothirds of the tobacconists in a given district, all those shops selling tobacco as a side line will have to close their doors at the same hour at which the tobacconists themselves close. The alternative is to give up selling tobacco and cigarettes altogether. The position applies similarly to those selling fruit and other defined lines. IS IT THE BIG MAN? It is suggested that the hand of the big central city business man is behind many of the provisions in the new legislation, he anticipating a. drift to Queen Street and other busy shopping districts in the event of severe restrictions on the outlying shops. Some difficulty might be experienced in enforcing the Act equitably, however, ahd amendments to the machinery clauses possibly will become necessary before next session of Parliament.