ASHBURTON HOTEL CASE

Hokitika Guardian, 28 April 1931, Page 5

ASHBURTON HOTEL CASE

APPEAL DISMISSED. IMPORTANT DECISION OF PRIVY COUNCIL. (United Press Association— By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) LONDON, April 24. The Privy Council dismissed with costs the appeal of Joseph Scales, of j Ashburton, hotelkeeper, against H. A. ' Young, S.M., and other members of • the Mid-Canterbury Licensing Committee. HISTORY OF THE CASE. An appeal was made by Joseph Scales, hotelkeeper, of Ashburton, who sought writs of certiorari and mandamus against the Mid-Canterbury Licensing Committee, which, had held that it had no jurisdiction to hear his application for a publican’s license in respect of the Somerset Hotel, Ashburton. Leave of appeal to the Privy Council was granted by the Court of Appeal on March 14, 1930, and Mr A. F. Wrjght, of the firm of Duncan, Cotterill and Co., Christchurch, went • Home to represent the appellant. The case arose from applications by : the present owners of four buildings in Ashburton which lost their licenses in 1903. They applied to the Mid-Canter-bury Licensing Committee fuji-’ publicans' licenses but the eominitlie held that it had no jurisdiction to grant the- L licenses. Counsel for the applicants contended that section 30 of the Licensing Amendment Act, 1910, gave the committee power to grant a new license wherever an old one had lapsed, provided application was made at the first annual meeting of the licensing committee held in file district. They contended, further, that the committee had jurisdiction in the old district where licenses had lapsed, and this applied to the cases then before them. A TEST CASE. \ Following the decision of the licehs- ' ing committee the!: case of Scales versus ' .Young and F - others :\vas> removed to the *». ? .Court of Appeal- for. argument, to bo Treated as a ( teafcc&soj and ; was heard-• - in September, 1929. 1 .' ’,

The Court heTcpthat sections 30 and 128 did not apply to the ’application. In giving the judgment of, the Court Mr Justice MacGregor.“gfiid'r ‘‘ln order to determine the question one must endeavour to ascertain -the' varying legal position of the plaintiff as a resident in Ashburton from time to timeunder the licensing laws of New ZeaInd. Until 1903 he was resident in a licensed district, and there entitled, ii qualified, co apply for a publican’s, license. “Then, in 1903, Ashburton ‘be- v " came a no-license district, and the plaintiff lost his right to apply for a publican’s license. At the same time the license of the Somerset Hotel automatically ceased to exist-. In 1928 the plaintiff (involuntarily) became a veal, dent in the district of Mid-Canterbury, which Is g licensed district, and -he ' thereupon, not uriiiaturaily, assumed that he could exercise his former right • of applying for a license in accordance with the law. ,

“RIGHT LOST FOR EVER.” “It now appears that he has seemingly lost that right for ever, inasmuch as the statute law has omitted to provide for the .present contingency, This result is both anomalous and unjust, Had the plaintiff remained in a nolicense district lie would have had a chance of regaining his right to apply for a license if ‘Restoration’ had been carried at any polh But that chance, too, has disappeared, as there can bejno poll of ‘Restoration’ in a licensed district where he has now been placed by the act of the law,

“In theory, the ‘plain object’ of the legislature regarding the issue of licenses appears to be that licenses.can lawfully be granted to applicants in licensed districts, but not in no-license districts. In practice that ‘plain object’ has been defeated in the plaintiff’s case and he is now (permanently) in a more hopeless position than ever. If he had been allowed to remain as be was, or had he even been transferred by operation of law from a licensed dis trict to a no-license district, he would have had a prospect of ultimately obtaining a license after a favourable restoration poll. “AN AMAZING RESULT.”

“But, having been transferred by th e same law from a no-license district to a licensed district, he finds himself de. barred by law from ever obtaining a license in that district, although he is the lessee of certain premises there in respect of which a license was formerly held, which license has ‘ceased to exist.’ In short, the result of a casual change in an electoral boundary has been to take the plaintiff and his neighbours without their consent out of a no-license district, where they had at least the possibility of obtaining a publican’s license in their midst, and to nlace them m a so-called ‘licensed district,’ where they have no chance of ever obtaining such a license. This truly amazing result was apparently not foreseen by the legislature. But whether foreseen or not- it does not seem to have been provided for. No machinery appears to exist in any licensing statute by means of which the plaintiff can now lawfully obtain a publican’s license.”