SUPPLYING LIQUOR

Grey River Argus, 1 June 1943, Page 6

SUPPLYING LIQUOR

EFFECT OF COURT'S DECISION.

WELLINGTON, May 31. The legal meaning of “supplying’ liquor has been so widened by a tecent decision of the Appeal Court that, in the opinion of Mr W. C. Harley, S.M., it covers any person who hands liquor for consumption to another person. At the Petone Court, a man was convicted and fined £2 for supplying a man with two glasses of beer in the Grand National Hotel, Petone, after hours. Defendant, who was a friend of the licensee, .arrived with a party of friends at the hotel some hours after closing time. He found the licensee unwell and offered to clean out the bar-room for him and, with the licensee’s consent, drew two rounds of liquor for some members of the party. One of them gave evidence, which however, was denied by defendant, that defendant had brought the liquor to him upstairs, others of the party, including the licensee, being downstairs in the bar-room. Mr Harley held that the charge of supplying against defendant had been proved. Charges against the licensee, of selling liquor after hours and of opening the premises for the sale of liquor after hours were dismissed, as there was no evidence of sale. Mr Harley remarked that, had the police proceeded on any one or all of several • other charges, such as supplying liquor, allowing liquor to be consumed, failing to enter lodgers' names in the register, or failure to record the supplying of liquor, they might have succeeded, but they had chosen to proceed under the charge of selling and opening for sale. In these they could not succeed.