Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), Thursday 25 October 1945, page 3


Theft (Not "Souveniring")

Hits City Restaurants

Increasing theft of cutlery and silver and breakages of glass-ware in hotels and restaurants were described yesterday as "in keeping with the general law-lessness in the community."

Hotel and restaurant managers, commenting on the report published yesterday of the extent of the N.S.W. railway refreshment room losses, told of their own recent experience.

Mr. A. McLeish, manager of the Hotel Sydney, said there were tre-mendous losses in fish-knives, spoons, and forks in the dining-room. In the bar, glasses were purposely stamped on and broken by irrespon-sible people. Others took glasses home in their pockets.

Mr. McLeish considered that the general shortage of cutlery induced many people to steal from hotels. Silverware was frequently taken to

pawn shops, where quite a good price

could be obtained.

Troops were not largely responsible for the thefts, he said. People who were receiving higher wages and who would "never have seen a hotel dining-room before the war" were to

blame.

The manager of a group of city chain restaurants deplored any such term as "souvenir hunting." Removal of any restaurant property was theft.

He said silver teapots were fre-quently missing, but thought that when the shops had more cutlery and crockery fewer thefts would take place. Women with shopping bags had been responsible for many of his

losses.

Silver-plated cutlery was removed by the management from another city restaurant when thefts were too great,

a spokesman said. Even the cheaper nickel-plated cutlery was always dis-appearing.