RESTAURANTS AND LIQUOR.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 17124, 20 April 1921, Page 6

RESTAURANTS AND LIQUOR.

AN INTERESTING CASE.

(PRBSS ASSOCIATION TBLEOBAM.) WELLINGTON, April 19. Reserved judgment was delivered to : day by Mr E. W. Hunt, S.M., in a case in which D. E. Dustin was charged un-' der sub-section 1 of section 11 of the Sale of Liquor -Prevention Act, with allowing liquor to be consumed -in a restaurant at a time when licensed premises were required to b6 closed. The facts were that on February lOtfa the upstairs hall of the defendant's premises ■> in Cuba street were let to tan Chemists' Association for a social meeting for tile sum of 305,, and Dustm supplied eatables and crockery at a certain rate. The promoters of the evening provided alconolic *refrcßhment. Una defendant was prosecuted ir. August last, and Mr J. S. Evans, S.M., in dismissing the case, held that the room was not part of the premises. Since the decision of Mr Evans, the section bad,been considered by Mr Justice Cooper in the case of Brett, v. Till, an appeal, from a,Magistrate's decision. The Magistrate convicted a Hamilton restaurant-keeper for allowing alcoholic liquor to be supplied after 6 p.m. in his restaurant. In that case the room had been let exclusively for! social purposes, but with this difference, that in the Hamilton case the room leo was that ordinarily used as a restaurant. It,waa contended in the' Hamilton case that as die restaurant had been closed to the general public from 3.30 p.m., in order to prepare for the social, from that time the premises ceased to be a restaurant. Mr Justice Cooner did not agree with this, holding that as the police -bad power to enter, if necessary, by force urider sub-section 3 of section 11 of the Act, the restaurant remained a restaurant, whether it was closed to the general public or not. Mr Hunt said that in the present case he could not hold that the upstairs hall of Dustin's premises did not "in any manner appertain to the restaurant." He thought it did, for it was used and kept as part of defendant's business. The defendant was convicted, but aa ho had the magisterial derision in his favour, the last time, Ms Hunt decided neither to fine him nor older him to pay costs. Mr Myers, for the defendant, intimated that he would appeal against the decision, and security was fixed at £7 7s.