QUARTERLY LICENSING COURT.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 55, 5 March 1878, Page 2

QUARTERLY LICENSING COURT.

The Quarterly Licensing Court wa* held thfs morning, the Commissioners heing His Honor the District Judge, and Messrs Barnicoat »nd Wells. The only application was that of George Thompson for a bottle license for a house to be built near the Odd-fellows' Hall in Waimea-street. The Chairman : The Bench is bound to enquire whether & necessity exists for such an establishment, and will hear what the Police have to lay. Inspector Kiely: I cannot say there is any such necessity, there being already two bottle licenses in the town, one within a few chains of the Odd-fellows Hall. Mr Thompson aigued that licenses had already been granted for such establishments in close proximity to public-houses. The Chairman : Nothing that has been done in the past can affect the future. Those licenses to which you refer were granted prior to the present Act coming into force. We are bound, to carry out the Act in all strictness. Mr Thompson: Am I to understand, then, that no license wilt be granted to me under any circumstances whatever ? The Chairman ; The Beach has no objection to you personally: on the contrary, they believe you to be a thoroughly respectable man, and perfectly fit to hold a license, but you must show that the locality in which you wish to establish such a house requires it. Unless you can do this the application must be refused. Inspector Kiely, bein* asked if he had anything to say with regard to the other houses, said he had no complaint to make of any kind so far as the law was concerned, but he wished to call the attention of the Bench to the fact that no provision existed in the local ordinance with regard to gambling, which was a source of great nuisance to the police and the neighborhood. There wer e five houses where it was steadily carried on, and the police were powerless to stop it. The Chairman : But you can reach them in another way, and they may rest assured that, although no pecuniary penalty can be inflicted, the Bench will most certainly refuse to grant their licenses on, the next licensing day if auch complaints are made agaiDßt them.