VISITORS AFTER HOURS.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18366, 27 April 1925, Page 3

VISITORS AFTER HOURS.

A LICENSEE'S DUTY. Mr Justice Alpers gare an interesting reserved decision at "Wellington in a case on appeal' concerning visitors to an hotel after hours. The •appeal was against the decision of the Magistrate in dismissing charges of breach of the licensing Act brought against Bartholomew John Kelleher, licensee of the Albert Hotel, Wellington. The alleged offence was on November 29th, 1924. In the course of his judgment, his Honour said that a party of five were driven to the hotel by' one Daniel Hill. They asked to see Kelleher, who was iif bed. They pushed past the night pprr ter and went to Kelleher's room. Four of them werre Kelleheir's perebnal friends, and the other being _ accommodated with a bed for the night, to which he went forthwith. The other four stayed ip the licensee's room for two hours, drinking ale, which was there and of which Kelleher did not partake. The ale in the room running out, two women of the party were given the key of the storeroom by the licensee, and brought two bottles of ale at the licensee's expense. When the police entered the four left the hotel by another door. The visitors were each convicted and fined for being on licensed premises after closing hours, and the licensee was then charged with "aiding, assisting counselling, and procuring" each of the offenders. The Magistrate dismissed these charges on the grounds that the licensee was not a party to their entry to the hotel, and that there was no voluntary act or acquiesence or forbearance on "his part, either causing their presence or aiding them to remain, but that he had tried to get them to go. "I am of the opinion," sayß his Honour, "that the inference drawn by the Magistrate from the facts found by him is erroneous in law. . . . The respondent was not merely a person present as a spectator, he was the person in control with a very clear duty to exercise control . . . The Magistrate is of opinion that the respondent showed 'loose- i ness and lack of control,' but adds that his 'chief efforts, if inadequate, seem to have been directed towards getting the visitors to depart.' These people were allowed to remain on the premises for some two hours. The ,icfc of giving the keys of the Btoreroom to the two women in order that they might fetch more Soer was surely 'in the nature of a voluntary act,' and aided and abetted them in attaining the only purpose for which they were there—to obtain drink."

As to the submission by counsel that the four persons were bona fide guests, his Honour says: "They had clearly come to the hotel at that late hour fop no other purpose than to obtain liquor, and the respondent could not, even though they were his personal friends, convert them into 'guests' by giving them liquor, as is suggested, in order to bribe them to go .... I am of the opinion, therefore, that the respondent Kelleher should have been convicted, and that the appeal should be allowed with £7 7s costs."