HOTEL LICENSE FEES

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 297, 12 June 1912, Page 7

HOTEL LICENSE FEES

DISCUSSED BY THE BOROUGH COUNCIL. ABOLITION OF GOODWILL URGED. Hotel license fees formed the basis of an interesting discussion at Monday night's meeting of the Borough Council. The meeting had before it the recommendation of the Works Committee that the Council should decline to endorse the resolution of the Gisborne Borough Council in favor of an increase in the license fees. The committee held that the matter was for Parliament, not for municipal interference. Cr. Clarke sought to carry a motion to the effect that the Council would favorably consider the passing of legislation increasing the fee to, say, £3OO in the main towns, provided the alteration in the law was accompanied by a Fair Rent Bill and the abolition of goodwill in hotel properties. To his mind, the Gisborne Council had not gone far enough. What was wanted was an amendment of the law to prevent the imposition of the payment by licensees of goodwill. In the case of hotels, the goodwill should accrue to the people per the medium of borough councils. Where the State, as in the case of hotels, created a monopoly by limiting the number of licensed houses, it was manifestly unfair and illogical to give a few privileged individuals, in the shape, not of hotel-keepers, but of hotel owners, the right to exact payment for goodwill. At present an owner was able to go into the market and often get £IOOO for the goodwill (for which he only paid, £4O), in addition to a substantial rental. Compared with other businesses, the position was quite anomalous. Dealing with a point raised by Cr. Jackson, Cr. Clarke added that it might be said if the goodwill of hotels were to he abolished, why should not the same restriction apply to other businesses? The difference was. however, that whatever goodwill had accrued in an ordinary business was the property, of the tenant or lessor—the man who "actually ran the establishment. When he sold out he, not the owner of the premises, got the price of the goodwill. Moreover any man was free to commence business in any line, but hotel owners had a monopoly of their own particular trade. In pointing out that many people held the supposition that it was the brewer who held the monopoly, the speaker 1 remarked that anybody was entitled to start a brewery. It was the absolute freeholder of hotel property .who was the monopolist. The goQdwjl|' weiit to him, not to the licensee./ In, his.' opinion the. municipality ought to get the whole of: the goodwill derived from any monopoly, so that the amount (£300) he was asking, was by no means inconsiderate. It went a long way from representing the. whole of the gain placed in the hands, of the owner through the present legislation ! :'.■>'■ :..l'i' i„.,l<l:(l Cr. Buxton spoke Vm similar lines. ' The whole matter will! Be l Considered by the Council at its next i meeting.

MOTHER TROW&ED.

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