Licensing Control: The role of liquor licensing in the changing occupation of a New Zealand Hotel

Patterns of occupation can be influenced and controlled by forces outside the needs and desires of building owners and users. In order to manage and control the behaviour of the populace, some Government acts and regulations are aimed to directly or indirectly modify the environment. This dynamic is investigated via a case study of the effect of 82 liquor licensing acts and amendments over the 125-year life of the Family Hotel, Otaki on the Kapiti Coast. Established in 1882, the hotel opened as a 'fine hostelry' for European settlers. With pressure from the temperance movement, bars converted to 'men only' barns where large quantities of beer were consumed in a '6 o'clock swill', deliberately hidden from public view. As regulations eased, Brewery duopolies modernised to woo the woman drinker and sell alcohol for consumption at home. In 2009, private owners no longer have a monopoly to sell liquor, but in regulated spaces they host poker machines and smokers. The hotel building fabric is now imbued with layers of cladding, awkward redundant additions as well as the stigma of past drinking customs. One of hundreds of such hotels in New Zealand, the Family Hotel in Otaki still functions as a hotel but is burdened with the physical legacy of licensing control.