A WIFE'S GUESTS

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 168, 3 August 1937, Page 6

A WIFE'S GUESTS

•Pres» AiBOciation.)

No After-Hour Drinks * in Hotels

(By Telegraph—

WELLINGTON, Last Night. By a majority decision, the Full , Court laid it down that the wife of an hotel licensee may not supply liquor to her own guest after closing hours, without committing an offence. The Chief Justice, iSr Michael Myers, Mr Justice Ostler and Mr Justice Kenuedy coneurred in that decision, but Mr Justice Callan and Mr Justice Northcroft dissented. The ease was an appeal against a conviction under section 205 (e) of the Licensing Act, 1908. The appellant, Lillian Mackenzie, was the wlfe of the licensee of Tattersall's Hotel at Christchurch. On May II, 1937, at 8.30 p.m., at a time when the licensee was absent from the licenced premises and the appellant was in charge, she entertained four of her - own guests in the upstairs lounge of the hotel and supplied them without charge, and in the way of entertainment, with intoxicating lisuor. The facts of the ease woce indis tinguishable from the facts in Watorson v. Low, in which it was decided that under such circumstancos the wife of a licensee could not, luriiig his absenee, supply her guests with intoxicating liquor without committing an offence. As it was thought by the legal adviser of the appel'ant that the ease had been wrongly decided, . an appeal was argued before the full bench of the Supreme Coart. The appeal was dismissecL The Chief Justice, Sir Michaol Jyers, h»>ld that tho appeal could only have sneceeded if the lieensee's wife. had proved that she had a common law ri^kt ot entertain her guests in her husband's house, but this was not the eases 1