The Akaroa Mail. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1877.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 60, 13 February 1877, Page 2

The Akaroa Mail. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1877.

A cask was decided on Thursday in the Resident Magistrate's Court, Christchurch, of some importance as affecting the holders of public house licenses. The landlord of the Central Hotel. Christeliurch, was summoned for having more than one bar on his premises. After hearing counsel, the Court held that the license for the premises only included one bar, and that for every additional bar, the licensee must have another license granted, and would have to pay a fee equal to one third of the fee paid for the license to the house. Mr. Thomas who appeared for the defendant complained of the hardship of this, and said that in some cases publicans would have to pay £150 instead of £75 a year. To this the reply of the Court was " that it was simply a commercial question, the publican was merely called upon to pay a fee for the greater convenience he secures." Expressing this dictum of the Court in still plainer language it amounts to this—" These " additional bars are opened by the " publicans as a commercial speculation, v now the the law provides that before a " man can vend alcoholic drinks, he " must be licensed to do so, and for that " license lie must pay a certain fee, that " license only entitles him to open one " bar ; if then he wishes to increase his " business by opening other bars, he must " pay a certain sum for each bar so " opened." We apprehend that the object of licensing is to regulate the liquor traffic, so as to j>revent drunkenness ; if this is the case, it seems a curious mode of regulation, to give increased facilities for drinking, in order to prevent drunkenness, and it involves very questionable morality when such facilities are given only on the payment of money.