LIQUOR SUPPLIED AFTER HOURS

Southland Times, Issue 24877, 17 October 1942, Page 4

LIQUOR SUPPLIED AFTER HOURS

Magistrate’s Comment On Legislation (P.A.) CHRISTCHURCH, Oct. 16. “The Court feels it is only right to pass some comment on the difficulties raised by the new legislation,” said Mr E. C. Levvey, S.M., when delivering a reserved decision in the case in which William Ewart Donnithorne, Licensee, and Herbert Ormond Solomon, porter, of Storey’s Hotel, were charged with supplying liquor after hours. “The real difficulty is that the Court’s power of. discretion has been removed from it, and no matter how it may view an offence and whatever degree of gravity it may hold to be involved, it has no alternative on entering a conviction to imposing the minimum fine of £10,” Mr Levvey said. The case was really a technical offence and amounted to little more than a slip by the porter. If counsel decided, not to test the decision and sought a remission of the fine he would recommend remission. Counsel submitted that the transaction was completed in lawful licensing hours and had been put aside to be called for before 6 p.m. Under the licensing law before the introduction of the emergency regulations, a licensee was not liable, even if liquor was called for in prohibited hours. The purchaser was merely reclaiming his own property. The Magistrate held that the action of the porter in assisting to remove beer came within the meaning of the word supplying. The licensee was vicariously responsible. Each defendant was fined £lO and costs. The Magistrate said he hoped, in view of the importance of the case to the licensing trade, that the decision would be tested in a higher Court.