Blanket bans on gangs illegal — Judge

Press, 1 March 1982, Page 4

Blanket bans on gangs illegal — Judge

PA Auckland Hotels had no power, to place a blanket ban on gang members, a High Court Judge in a written decision released in Auckland has said.

While quashing convictions against Consolidated Hotels, Ltd, for the refusal to serve gang members, Mr Justice Barker says: “It is not open to a licensee to ban whole sections of the community from a hotel.” He has vacated the convictions on the ground that the manager of the hotel concerned, rather than the company owning it, should have been prosecuted in a test case brought by a university law lecturer, Elizabeth Jane Kelsey, in the District Court at Auckland, last year.

But his Honour has rejected the first ground of the appeal: that a blanket ban on gang members is permitted by a 1979 amendment to the Sale of Liquor Act, giving hotels the right to refuse liquor to any person they have reasonable grounds for believing would become violent, quarrelsome, insulting, or disorderly.

The court heard that Miss Kelsey and another lawyer went to a Hamilton hotel

with five gang members in order to test the legality of blanket gang prohibitions. The public bar of the hotel carried a sign that all gang members and associates were prohibited. The District Court found that Miss Kelsey and one of the gang members were refused liquor although nothing in their conduct could have led to the conclusion they were likely to breach the peace. His Honour has agreed with the District Court judge that the hotel’s previous “bit-

ter experiences" with the Hamilton chapter of a certain gang did not provide reasonable ground for the refusal to serve Miss Kelsey’s friends, who were from the Auckland chapter of the gang.

Counsel for Miss Kelsey, Mr Michael Crew, said the decision was “a statement in the clearest and strongest possible terms that hotels cannot ban whole sections of the community — whether motor-cycle gangs, rugby teams, or the Returned Services' Association.”