page 15

Mary Seddon: Legal, Logical, Liquor

by John McGrath

Substantial amendments to the Sale of Liquor Act 1962 are suggested by Mary Seddon, proprietress of Wellington's Monde Marie Coffee Bar, in a submission to the Statutes Revision Committee.

Miss Seddon wants the Licensing Control Commission to be given explicit statutory authority to grant restricted licences to sell wine to the smaller restaurants. Her idea of such a licence is the right to have one glass of wine with a meal in five to eight shilling price range.

Her arguments for such a licence being available and against anomalies of the present system are convincing. They are outlined in her written submission and were explained and elaborated when I interviewed her. They are not based on the adequacies or otherwise of the Monde Marie for such a licence, though this is obviously a motive behind the submissions.

Considerable capital outlay is required to obtain a licence under present conditions. The Commission is adamant that restaurants have such facilities as lounges and separate men's and women's toilets. For many places such as Victoria Street's Cafe Boulevard this is an architectural impossibility. For those who raise the necessary finance there must inevitably be the attempts of a manager to produce a satisfactory financial return. In so doing the standard of the meal will suffer.

The smaller restaurant which does not have a licence must now either turn on a very cheap meal or attempt to compete with its licensed and more sophisticated elder brothers. There is no restaurant in Wellington which, to her mind, has succeeded. Further competition comes from the hotels who have installed hot buffet lunches in their bars.

Miss Seddon feels that wine has been transformed into a status symbol for the rich and it is certainly true that dinner out at a restaurant with wine has come to be regarded as something for a special occasion. The wines offered are usually expensive.

She feels that individuality is penalised. To ensure an adequate return for a large investment, the size of shop and kitchen must be enlarged and thus personal supervision is lost.

Though it is difficult to imagine a restaurant of a size that would warrant directors and be able to pay their fees, it is obvious that a restaurant must become a business. A further point is that "business-men lunches" put out by the small restaurants are faced with competition from the hotels who have installed hot lunch counters in bars.

Finally, Miss Seddon acknowledges that such a licence as she envisages must have sharp restrictions. One glass of wine and one only would in her view be a satisfactory limitation.

The cynic will find it easy to rubbish Miss Seddon's arguments with irrelevant references to her unlicensed liquor episodes in the past. It must be hoped that the Statutes Revision Committee give her a more reasonable hearing. She has told me that most of her proposals are not new and have previously been dropped by Parliament for reasons of political expediency.

Such restricted licences would be subject to the Sale of Liquor Act providing the usual penalties for buying liquor when under 21 or selling to someone under that age. The exceptions in the case of restaurants are that anyone over 18 years may drink alcohol with a meal if accompanied by his parent, guardian or spouse. Difficulties may be encountered in enforcing this aspect of the law, but these will not be any other than those already encountered with underage drinking.

The means suggested of effecting these proposals are by empowering the Licensing Control Commission to prescribe different classes of licences. The following proviso would be added to s.65 (2) (d) of the Act:

"The Commission may prescribe different standards in respect of different classes of licensed restaurants, and may limit the type (whether by way of limiting the price or otherwise) of liquor that may be sold by any restaurant of particular class or the quantity of liquor that may be sold therein to any one person as part of the meal. Any such limitations shall be deemed to be a condition of the licence."