AN UNREGISTERED BARMAID

Hokitika Guardian, 23 February 1928, Page 1

AN UNREGISTERED BARMAID

APPEAL TO SUPREME COURT. CLARENDON HOTEL CASE. CHRISTCHURCH, Feb. 22. Sonic weeks ago, in the Afagistrato’s Court, C. 11. Piper, licensee of the Clarendon Hotel, was charged with having allowed a woman, not a registered barmaid, to serve in the bar. AL 11. P. Lawry, S.AL, dismissed the information on the ground that the bar was not open for sale of liquor within the meaning of section 36 of tlie Licensing Act. 1910. This decision was appealed against by tho Crown, mid yesterday, in the Supreme Court, his Honour Air Justice Adams allowed the appeal with €8 8s costs and disbursements, and remitted the case to I ho Magistrate with an opinion that a conviction should be entered. In his judgment, his Honour said: “The first point was that the bar, having been opened for the sole purpose of procuring liquor, for a lodger, it was not open for HIT? sale of liquor within Section 36 of the Act of 1910. In construing this section, it is to be observed that it is the ‘bar’ which is to be open, and not the licensed premises, as in Sections 189-190. As I had occasion to point out in Parr v. Surgenor, the test under the similar provisions of Section 190 of the Act of 1908. as to opening of licensed premises. is, were tlie premises open in tlie sense that people could get in

from the outside to have intoxicating liquor or that they can get it supplied to them when outside, and the same test is to be applied here? Tn the circumstances. I think the bar was so onen ; the lodger was, in fact, supplied with liquor from the bar. The transaction was a sale of liquor, and the private bar was open for the purpose of that transaction just as a public bar is open during permitted hours for the sale of liquor. "hieh may be procured, in exactly the same way, by messenger, and delivered in n private room. The fact that the lodger sent the porter to tlie woman with the order makes no difference. Tf the sale was lawful there was no reason whv the lodger should not have gone into' the bar to be served, but. j n nnv case, the bar was open for the sale. . “Counsel for the respondent also contended that a bar in licensed premises is only a bar. within the section. during tlie hours within which 'the licensee is permitted to sell liquor under Section 189: that at other times it is not a bar, but a room m the licensed premises; and that the as limb of Section 36 (1) must be rea ‘while the bar is open for the sale ot liquor therein,” the last word, ‘ therein ” being added by construction. As to’the first of these contentions, m mv opinion, the bar-public or private—of a licensed bouse is a bar foi 94 hours of every day it remains fi - ted up for the purpose ot the sale of liquor. As to the second there » no ground for attributing to the Legislature an intention to limit the section in the manner suggested.

Air Donnelly appeared for appellant (informant in the lower Court) and Air Cutlibert for respondent, C. H. Piper (defendant in tlie lower Court).