Originally Posted by
fungus pudding
A few other things some will recall:
Doctor's prescription required to buy margarine (from a chemist)
Illegal to have alcohol within 1 mile of a dance hall.
Illegal to dance in a hotel bar.
Strict limits on taking money overseas. If you couldn't bludge accommodation - it wasn't worth going.
Shopping in weekends allowed only in Brighton, the Christchurch suburb and a Wellington suburb.
Having to collect up 50cent postal vouchers - 1 per day- till you had sufficient to subscribe to an overseas magazine or a 'car coat' a popular style of jacket in its day.
And if you wanted a business or school shirt, you had Hobson's choice of Lichfield. A rugged garment made of sandpaper I think.
The only allowed crockery was govt. owned Crown Lynn brand. Not unlike concrete. You could sometimes buy, smuggled in, decent stuff if you hung round the wharves. The ship crews at great risk used to bring in such forbidden items, crockery, transistors etc.
Almost impossible to get a license to sell liquor in a restaurant, or run a BYO.
One of the most controlled economies and societies in the world. Sir Roger Douglas certainly deserved his knighthood for dismantling much of the nonsense.