DRINKS AFTER SIX O’CLOCK

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 684, 8 June 1929, Page 8

DRINKS AFTER SIX O’CLOCK

Sir, Attention should be called to the flagrant violation of the six o’clock closing law. Under the Act boarders and their guests may be supplied with liquor after six o’clock. It was never intended that this provision should apply to any other than bona fide boarders and guests. Now, however, it is apparently a common practice to

open an upstair bar at six o'clock, where almost any person may obtain liquor on the flimsy pretext that he is a boarder or guest. I am informed that on one occasion the police visited a certain hotel after hours and found the upstairs bar crowded with men drinking. Among the number was an ex-solicitor, who coolly requested a half-drunken boarder to say that they were all his guests. The man accordingly hiccoughed: “Thesh are all my guests—hie!—Consh’tble,” with the result that the police were powerless to act. It appears that if licensees will flagrantly violate the intention of the Act, the only way to secure proper enforcement of the law will be to prohibit entirely the sale of liquor to any person after six o’clock. LOUIS E. FALKNER, Secretary N.Z. Alliance.