EXTRA BARS IN HOTELS.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 937, 26 June 1877, Page 3

EXTRA BARS IN HOTELS.

The following is the Post's report of the argument and decision in the case recently heard in the Wellington Resident Magistrate's Court affecting the question of extra bars: —

Mr Ollivier stated that he had been instructed by the Licensed Victuallers of Wellington to bring under the notice of the Court a matter which affected, not only the publicans, but also the administration of the licensing laws now in force, and therefore it was a question which was not unworthy the consideration of the Bench. The question which he had to submit to the Bench was whether the publicans of Wellington were liable to pay a separate license fee for upstairsjbars. Section 2of the Act of 1873 defined the word " bar " to mean " any room, passage, or lobby, within a licensed publichouse opening immediately into any street, highway, or public thoroughfare." A most curious and illiberal interpretation had been put upon those words by the Christchurch Licensing Bench, and the result was that the publicans of that city had been put to considerable expense in defending themselves against what they considered to be an unjust tax. The Christchurch Bench had decided that a slit in the wall through which it was possible to hand a glass of liquor to a person on the other side was an additional bar, for which a fee should be paid. To show the absurdity of this decision, he would instance the case of the Central Hotel, Lambton Quay. In that hotel there was only one bar, but for the convenience of the public, there were four or five openings into it, and if the decision of the Christchurch Bench were to be adopted here the proprietor of that hotel would have to pay for four or five bars, although in reality there was only one in the hotel. He understood that a test case had been brought up in Christchurch, but for some reason the police had thought fit to withdraw it, and consequently there was as much uncertainty about the matter as ever. He held that it was not right if a bar were accessible from several points to charge for it as if it were a number of bars. The Christchurch Bench had held that if there were only one compartment in an hotel, with several entrances to it, each entrance was a separate bar. According to the Act an upstairs bar was not a separate bar, because it did not open into a street or public thoroughfare. Mr Crawford said the Bench were of opinion that in the case of the Central Hotel, referred to by Mr Ollivier, there was only one bar. They agreed with him that an upstairs bar could not be charged for unless it opened into a street or public thoroughfare.