THE RAILWAY HOTEL.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVII, Issue 4984, 7 June 1926, Page 2

THE RAILWAY HOTEL.

INTERESTING POINT RAISED. PREFERENCE FOR THE OWNERSWhen the Ohinemuri Licensing Bench resumed its sitting at Paeroa on Wednesday mdrning Mr E. H. Northcroft, who was absent from the sitting the night before, asked for permission to question a, point raised by Mr F. D. McLiver, who had ap-1 peared for the. applicant for the Railway Hotel, Paeroa. Having been granted permission to address the Bench, Mr Northcroft drew 1 attention to the fact that there were two aspects to the claim submitted by Mr McLiver for a preference application, na.mely, that the Moriartys had been the holders of a license at. the Paeroa Hotel at the time no-license, came into ’force, and, secondly, that preference was claimed because the section of la,nd adjoining the Paeroa, Hotel was held . by the. Moriartys prior to and since nolicense came into force. As licensee of the hotel* the section held involved nothing more, than a lease, so far as the hotel was concerned, and it could hardly be claimed that the adjacent section was a part of the hotel property. The. onus of deciding what was actually hotel premises rested with the committee. If the arguments advanced by Mr McLiver were sound, them it could be assumed that a licensee wlho owned a farm and supplied milk and vegetables to the hotel was subject, in respect to his farm, to the Licensing Act. It was absurd t.o suggest that such a licensee could have his license transferred from an hotel to his farm. What actually constituted hotel premises was a question of fact. A convenient test would be to suppose that one part of the licensed premises was sold a,nd an important part of the hotel taken from the licensee. The committee, could then interfere because it would be shown that the license had suffered damage. The committee would have to decide which of the two applicants were entitled to preference. He contended that preference must attach to the person owning the hotel premises ; that the preference was to the owner of the premises, and the Act made no reference. to any preference for licensees. The Bench thanked Mr Northoroft for drawing attention to the points mentioned.