GAMING ACT CASES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 182, 3 July 1937, Page 5

GAMING ACT CASES.

CHARGES AT CHRISTCHURCH

Per Press Association. CHRISTCHURCH, July 3. Breaking through specially reinforced and bolted doors, a party of 27 police and detectives raided the Civic Club, on the third floor of a building in Manchester Street, at 11.30 o’clock last night and arrested 32 men. This morning Raymond Claude McHarus, salesman, tlic proprietor of the club, was fined £IOO and costs, in default three months’ imprisonment, by Mr E. C. Levvey, S.M., for using the premises as a common gaming house. Thirty men were fined £5 and costs, in default 30 days’ imprisonment, for being found on the premises of a common gaming house, and one old-age pensioner, who said "lie was just at the clu7> “to borrow a few shillings from his cousin Ike,” was convicted and discharged. “The door was barricaded and reinforced,” said Detective-Sergeant Holmes in describing the laid to the Magistrate. He produced three heavy bolts as evidence. The game being played was hazards. “Complaints have been received about the club.” said the Detective-Sergeant. “People' have complained of the way in which it was conducted and said that men with criminal records had been c eou entering. Wives of sustenance men said that their husbands were gambling there. Altogether the place comes well within the definition of a common nuisance.” '-“T ask for leniency for the members,” said McHarus, when asked what ho had to say. “They are poor men who were doing no harm. It was just a working man’s flutter.”