THE LICENSING ACT.

Putaruru Press, Volume IV, Issue 116, 14 January 1926, Page 5

THE LICENSING ACT.

A SUPPOSED FLAW. Recently the police proceeded against the licensee of the Te Araroa Hotel for selling liquor during prohibited hours on a Sunday. The case ■was heard by Mr. E. C. Levvey, during the East Coast circuit, and judgment was delivered at Gisborne on the 14th.

“ The facts of the case,” said' the magistrate, “ are that a man came from a far-hack farm and stayed at the hotel on the Saturday and ordered a quantity of liquor, for which he then paid, to be set aside for him to take away when he left the following day. On the Sunday the manpacked up his swag together with the liquor and then went to secure *his horse. But instead of going hack to the country immediately he became dissipated and this is the cause of the prosecution.” The issue had been submitted by the police that the station hand was not a lodger and that the quantity of liquor supplied to him was excessive. However, lie had no hesitation in saying that in his opinion the man was still a hoarder at the hotel when he procured the liquor. As to the quantity of liquor supplied to him, the magistrate said that this raised an interesting point in the Licensing Law. The police contended that under the present provisions of the law a man that stayed at the hotel for a short time could be sold the whole liquor stock of the hotel and no objection could be raised. If this was so, the magistrate. said, there is an important flaw in the Licensing Act which requires t-0 be immediately amended. However, a licensee generally uses his discretion in supplying liquor to persons staying at the hotel or leaving it, and in the opinion o the magistrate it could not he said that two gallons of whisky is an excessive supply to a man who lives on an outback station and visits a hotel once in six months or perhaps once *.n a year, and the information would -therefore be dismissed.