THE LICENSING LAWS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 3775, 3 April 1928, Page 2

THE LICENSING LAWS.

GILBERTIAN CHARACTERISTICS. THE RULES OF “AFTER HOURS” Auckland, March 31.

Many people would like to know definitely what is a lawful excuse for being on licensed premises after hours. One does not refer to those who wish to evade the law and obtain liquor at night, but to the thousands of law-abiding folk who are often lodgers in hotels or who are invited by lodgers to be their guests.

Most people have been under the impression that, being lodgers, they may regard their hotel as their home where they may receive guests bn business or merely socially and offer them hospitality in glasses. The practice is quite common, and as far as one may judge, the police as a rule, do not interfere, confining their attentions to those whose only excuse for entering hotels after hours is to secure liquor. The decision of a Magistrate at Hamilton during the week in a case in which two constables were prosecuted, suggests that many people have been breaking the law unwittingly and that its administration could be made a very harassing thing to the travelling public. The two men entered at the invitation of a lodger, a solicitor, who offered them drinks which they ar-c-epted. One proved that he was a friend of the lodger, whom he was Consulting on a matter of business and the charge against him was dismissed. The other had no such excuse and was convicted and fined.

The magistrate is reported to have said that he did not think it would have been a sufficient excuse had the first defendant gone into the hotel merely on the invitation of the lodger, but it had been proved that he had business to discuss, which was accepted as a sufficient excuse. Lacking this excuse, the bther guest was convicted. Yet another magistrate not long ago accepted as a lawful excuse the explanation of three men that they had gone to a hotel for the purpose of hearing the Sydney races broadcasted. To the mind of the ordinary man the position is developing Gilbertian characteristics, but its humour is lost upon those who frequently live in hotels and desire to use them as their homes. If if is to bo the rule that a guest cannot be a guest unless he proves that he has business with a lodger, many people would like to have it laid down definitely.'