Hotels
From The Orange Wiki
By 1880 Orange boasted 33 hotels. The early publican’s licences were granted by the local Justices of the Peace who assembled annually for that purpose. Before a licence was granted it was necessary that the premises have ‘at least two sitting rooms and two sleeping rooms’ available to the public.
The importance of the horse in those days is shown by the fact that ‘stabling sufficient for the accommodation of six horses at the least’ with a supply of corn and hay had to be provided.
To guide travellers over the dark and often muddy roads, a lamp had to be kept burning all night outside the premises. Several of the hotels were then on the outskirts of town for the convenience of travellers and teamsters, and had paddocks available for their use. It was a serious offence for publicans to serve liquor to convicts without permission of their masters or overseers. The bar, even then, was out of bounds to aboriginal people.
On January 1 1882 an Act to ‘Amend and embody in one Statute the Liquor Laws’ came into force. By virtue of this Act the Orange Licencing District was later proclaimed and John Tom Lane, Police Magistrate was appointed Chairman and Messer’s Josiah Parker and the Hon Andrew Kerr members. These gentlemen had exclusive jurisdiction on all licencing matters. Larger hotels were now visualised and it became necessary for at least ‘four sleeping rooms’ to be provided for public use. Stable accommodation for four horses was considered sufficient.
Holders of the publicans’ licences under the repealed Act when applying for renewals were compelled to lodge statutory declarations that their accommodation complied with the provisions of the new Act. Demonstrating the smallness of some of the Orange Hotels five of the licensees were compelled to ask for time to have the necessary additions and alterations made to their premises.
This Act ended the indiscriminate granting of publicans licences by the local bench, a form of Local Option Voting being introduced. The vote of ratepayers was taken on the same day as the election of aldermen.
