NO ALTERNATIVE

Evening Star, Issue 24328, 17 October 1942, Page 4

NO ALTERNATIVE

£lO FINE FOR TECHNICAL OFFENCE NEW LICENSING LEGISLATION (P.A.) ’ CHRISTCHURCH. Oct. 16. “ The court feels that it is only right to pass some comment on the difficulties raised hr the new legislation,” said Mr E. C. Levvey, S.M., delivering Ins reserved decision to-day in a case in which William Ewart Donnithorne, licensee, and Herbert Ormond Solomon, porter, of Storey’s Hotel, were charged with supplying liquor after hours. “The real difficulty is that the court’s power of discretion has been removed from it, and, no matter how it may view the offence and whatever degree of o-ravity it may hold to be involved, it has no alternative on entering a conviction to imposing the minimum fine of £10.” Mr Levvey said the case was really a technical offence, and amounted to little more than a slip by the porter. If counsel decided not to test the decision, and sought a remission of the fine, he would recommend remission. Counsel submitted that the transaction was completed in the lawful licensing hours, and had been put aside to be called for before 6 p.m. Under the licensing law before the introduction of the emergency regulations, a licensee was not liable, even if liquor was called for in prohibited hours. The purchaser was merely reclaiming his own property. The magistrate held that the action of the porter in assisting to remove beer came within the meaning of the word “ supplying.” The licensee was vicariously responsible. Each defendant was fined £lO and costs. The magistrate said he hoped that, in view of the importance of the case to the licensing trade, the decision would be tested in a higher court.