LICENSING ACT.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 54, 1 February 1938, Page 8

LICENSING ACT.

COURT IMPOSES PENALTIES. Pleading guilty to a breach which he said had been committed “under misleading circumstances,” Charles William Coldicutt, licensee of the Cafe de Paris Hotel, was charged before Mr J. L. Stout, S.M., in the Magistrates Court yesterday with selling liquor after hours on January 13. Employed as a barman-porter on the premises, Walter Edward Davison was charged with supplying liquor after hours on the same date. . Senior-Sergeant Mclntyre stated that at 8.20 p.m. on January 13, Sergeant O’Donnell, accompanied by a constable, had visited the premises. They were met by the licensee, who led the wav to the private bar and- unlocked the door, remarking that there were a few hoarders inside The police found there six men, with a corresponding number of glasses in front of them. One of the six was a lodger who had invited in two of the others, but the remaining three had said they went there to get drink. Asked for an explanation, the licensee said lie thought they were boarders. He bad been convicted of a similar offence on March 1.1937, when licensee of an hotel at Pahiatua. The licensee stated to the Magistrate that there were 51 people sleeping in the hotel that night, and he was under the impression that lodgers were entitled to ask their guests to have a drink. One of the men had stayed at the hotel on eight different occasions, and it was difficult to know whether every one who came in was a boarder. Tlie Magistrate said defendant would be fined £5. with 10s costs, “for his carelessness.” Davison, the other defendant, was fined likewise, Penalties of £2. with 10s costs, were imposed on five men for being found on licensed premises after hours.