The use of discretion in the enforcement of some laws is a good thing in my opinion, something I have always been a supporter of. Laws are necessary, but interpretation and working with them are important factors too.
We would often travel to the Turakina Railway Hotel to enjoy the hospitality of the Cordings, great food and company. A real country pub with a public bar, pool table and dart board, TAB on the telly, a homely atmosphere where everyone knew each other.
With changing times and the very strict social behaviour around drink-driving now a way of life in New Zealand has come a change in the way people socialise and in the priorities hotels and taverns offer their customers.
It’s more about food now than drinking for many people.
Driving around the district now, it’s sad to see many of these fine establishments have gone. Though some still exist and have adapted.
Most were built in the 19th century when the hinterland was being settled and developed.
All had their traditions, ways, sporting contests, stories, and histories.
The Kai Iwi Tavern with its wild food festival is one that springs to mind. Locals would go hunting and produce their catches later in the day at the pub: heaviest pig, best condition, biggest deer, all sorts of game.
Over the years we really enjoyed visiting the Avoca Hotel in Ūpokongaro, just up the river, a quiet drive into the country and into another world.
It’s had a few owners over the years but I remember one licensee who operated an old London double-decker bus.
He would run a service to town, pick up all the punters and take them to the pub. The return journey later in the evening was always a hoot.
A great little pub with a noisy, full public bar supplying all the farm workers and farmers from around the area - and a delightful lounge bar that rocked.
I remember celebrating St Patrick’s Day there 30 years ago.
Our gang went straight to the pub from work, still in work clothes but we were allowed in the lounge bar anyway. It was that kind of pub, there were rules but they were flexible.
Times change and society’s tastes change.
Back in the 1980s restaurants and café-bars were a rarity but now they are everywhere - the changing behaviours of 21st century New Zealand.
But I still like the fusty old pubs, open fire on a cold day, the pie warmer, the chatty landlord, the coins on the pool table, and the local character propped at the end of the bar.
Good times.
Rob Rattenbury is a retired police officer who lives in Whanganui. He has been a columnist for the Whanganui Chronicle since 2019.
