House Adopts New Measure Saving Bars

Assembly Amends Old Measure to Provide for Local Vote

Bleakly Wins on Home Rule

Opposition Growing to Excise Plan of Richards

Trenton, June 19. — The Assembly tonight approved sale of beer over bars and on Sundays after 1 a.m.

The measure, sponsored by Assemblyman F. Stanley Bleakly, of Camden, and Assemblyman Thomas M. Muir, of Union, makes the provisions in municipalities whose governing bodies give such authority by resolution. It supplements the present law.

The bill assures local option by providing that a local referendum would be mandatory at the next general election if five percent of the voters of any municipality protest Sunday sales and bars, and petition for the referendum. The present law prohibits sale on Sundays and over bars.

Minority Leader John J. Rafferty, of Middlesex, opposed the measure on he ground it violated the pledge by friends of repeal, that bars would not return.

Oppose Richards Bill

Bleakly and Assemblyman Joseph Altman, of Atlantic, answered that bars are used freely now and that the bill would eliminate hypocrisy.

Meanwhile opposition to Senate President Emerson L. Richards' proposed permanent beer bill gained headway. One of his Atlantic county colleagues, Assemblyman Anthony J. Siracusa, and the State League of Municipalities objected to some of its provisions.

The bill sponsored by Richards, chairman of the State Beverage Control commission, proposes setting up a state excise commission and advisory boards in each of the 21 counties. All licenses, for retail and wholesale, would be issued by the state commission.

Expense Objected To

"If the state attempts to control the licensing and selling of beer," Siracusa said, "it will necessitate the appointment of a large enforcement bureau by a staff of investigators.

"Furthermore, it will defeat the purpose for which beer was legalized — that of creating increased revenue. The state would have to spend all the revenue derived to enforce regulations."

S. S. Kenworthy, secretary of the State League of Municipalities, declared the proposed Richards bill violated home rule and that the set up of the state excise commission and the county boards would be costly and cumbersome.

Assemblyman Bleakly, a member of the beer control commission, also has announced he would oppose the bill in its present form, because, he said, it would lead to political abuses, and because it did not permit municipalities to decide whether beer should be sold on Sundays but made it mandatory.

The committee is scheduled to meet tomorrow for final consideration of the measure before introduction in the Legislature.