TOWN EDITION. The Daily Telegraph SATURDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1881.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3270, 24 December 1881, Page 2

TOWN EDITION. The Daily Telegraph SATURDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1881.

The recent decision of the magistrates at Dunedin in the case of a prosecution under the Licensing Act goes to show that lodgers and travellers can be pupplied with liquor in public-houses on Sundays. Clause 155 imposes a penalty for selling or exposing for sale in licensed premises any liquor, or for opening or keeping open such premises for the sale of liquor, or for allowing any liquors, although purchased tefore the hours of closing, to be consumed in such premises, during the time at which licensed premises are directed to be closed. But the clause that follows very materially alters the stringency of the law, for it says, " Nothing in this Act shall preclude an innkeeper who is licensed to sell liquor to be consumed on the premises from selling such liquor at any time to bona fide travellers, or to persons lodging in his house." The decision of the Dunedin Bench was as follows :—') The facts admitted are not sufficient to prove a breach of the law. The words of the Act, " keeps open such premises for the sale of liquors," must be read and interpreted with other provisions, and the section following the one in which these words are found expressly provides that nothing in the Act shall preclude an innkeeper from selling liquor at any time to travellers or lodgers. To allow travellers to obtain liquors there must be access to the house, and lodgers must have ingress and egress, consequently it would be a most insensible interpretation to say that no door shall be open into the house. Now, as to the other facts admitted, that there was access to the bar where liquors are kept, and that there was a person in the bar to serve liquors; These facts Hare quite consistent with lawful traffic, for travellers and lodgers have to be supplied, and there is no restriction as to the part of the house in which they are to be served. To put the conclusion we come to in other words, we are of opinion that the Licensing Act does not prohibit the keeping open the door of an hotel, or acess to the bar, or a person being there to serve; but these are all facts which may be considered as evidence of intent, and we do not consider this evidence is sufficient to prove that defendant's object was to sell liquors to other persons than travellers and lodgers, because, in respect to an hotel in which a large business is carried on, the facts are not inconsistent with lawful traffic." Upon this decision the New Zealand Times makes the following comments: —" This judgment is based upon sound reason and common sense, however much it may be opposed to the principle of the Act, and is one among many instances in which the slightest ambiguity or seeming contradiction in the : wording of clauses is sufficient to nullify intended effect. In this case the provision that all licensed premises shall be closed and no liquor sold on Sundays is nullified by a clause immediately following, which permits a licensed innkeeper to sell liquor "to be consumed on the premises," at any time to bona fide travellers or to persons lodging in the house. Other clauses in the Act take away all choice from a licensed innkeeper in such respect, and make it imperative that he shall provide good lodging and entertainment. To do this he must give them (travellers or lodgers) access to his licensed house on Sundays, and, as the Dunedin magistrates have ruled, there is no prohibition to his keeping the bar open or placing a person there to serve all lodgers or bona fide travellers, not merely for one or two hours in the day, but for an equal number of hours to those in which, by terms of his license, his house must be open for business during week days. The only check the Act provides against an infringement of these provisions is that, in the course of any proceedings against an innkeeper he, as the defendant, may be called upon to prove that the person supplied was a bona fide traveller or lodger to the best of his, the innkeeper's, knowledge and belief; and a purchaser of liquor on Sunday may also be called upon to prove that he is a bona fide traveller, and is subject to penalty for making false representation for the purpose of obtaining liquor " during the period duriug which such premises are closed in pursuance of this Act." So runs clause 158. But apart from the difficulty of proving that the premises are illegally open when the Act prescribes that, for the accommodation of a section of the public, such premises may—indeed must —be kept open, the responsibility rests upon the police of catching offenders iv the very act of consuming liquors during unlawful hours.