CO129-616-6 Hotels Ordinance- 1949 21-2-1949 - 21-2-1949 — Page 96

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Schedule C

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being departed from or forgotten by a number of hotels.

40 The Order which, as stated, was made by the Competent Authority

under the Regulations of 1948, fixed rates for accommodation and

for services

charges which were resented by the hotel managements on the ground that

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they were said to be unduly low.

Opposition to the rates so fixed was

accompanied by criticism of the employment of emergency legislation.

As a result of such protest and criticism a Hotel Rates Advisory

Committee was appointed by the Government. The Committee made

considerable enquiry and took substantial time before reporting. The

main feature of the Committee's report, which was accepted by Government,

proposed a scale of rates and reservation of accommodation which would

be applicable to hotel residents but so applicable only to a limited

number of hotels.

5. Consequent on this report the Bill of which a copy is annexed,

was prepared. It reproduced, with only one important exception, the

recommendations or suggestions of the Committee. The important exception

is that the Committee's report had recommended, a little vaguely, the

setting up of some form of appeal Board or Tribunal to deal with appeals

from the decisions of the Quartering Authority appointed for the purposes

of the Ordinance and Regulations and in general with the representations

of interests aggrieved as a result of the Committee's recommendations.

The Ordinance, as will be observed from regulation 8 of the Regulations

appearing in the Schedule, has provided for appeal only in regard to the

allocation of reserved accommodation. It was felt that to provide for

a wider range of appeals would probably result in making the legislation

was

unworkable. Furthermore, it/anticipated, guided by experience in the

operation of the Tenancy Tribunals set up under the Landlord and Tenant

Ordinance, 1947, that very considerable difficulty could be expected in

obtaining suitable personnel to man any such permanent appeal tribunal

and in providing the staff and accommodation necessary for its

activities.

6. The Ordinance under report received its First Reading as a

Bill on the 9th February. The Second and subsequent stages were taken

on the 23rd February. In the interval a petition was presented by the