UNREGISTERED BARMAIDS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 25, 28 January 1913, Page 7

UNREGISTERED BARMAIDS.

PUBLIC AND PRIVATE BARS. (Per Press Association.) Wellington, January 27. The much-discussed clause passed by the Legislature last year with a view to effectively prohibiting the employment of unregistered barmaids in licensed houses, was subjected to legal analysis in the Magistrate’s Court,, be fore Dr. A. McArthur, S.M., this afternoon, when John Thomas Lovett (licensee of the Adelphi Hotel), John C. Mason (Panama Hotel), M. H. Robertson (Commercial Hotel), and Margaret Macintosh (Royal Tiger Hotel), were charged with employing unregistered girls “in or about a bai or private bar” in their respective houses. Mr. H. H. Ostler conducted the case for the police, and Mr. T. M. Wilford appeared for all the defendants. The case against Lovett was first taken, and a plea of “not guilty’ was entered.

Mr. Ostler asked that the information should be amended so that one offence only would be charged. Hi proposed to deal with the case as if related to a “private bar,” and asked that the words “bar or” be struck out.

Mr. Wilford said that before this was done ho desired to ask whether there was power to amend an information if there is no offence alleged m the first instance. He admitted that if an alternative offence was charged there would be a right to amend. In this information he claimed that them was no offence under the Act. He submitted that it was impossible for a bar or private bar to exist. The only “bar” defined in the Act was that referred to in section 4 of the Licensing Act of 1908. If no offence was alleged, then he could not be put on h:s defence. A “bar” under the Act meant a place where the public could enter and purchase liquor, and “opening directly on to the street. hat could a “private bar” mean when a “bar” was defined as “a place which the public could enter and opening directly on to the street?” The Magistrate: You mean it cannot exist.

Mr, Wilford: There is no such thing. Mr. Ostler submitted that the point raised was not sound in law. He claim ed that each information did allege ai. alternative offencej. (1) Employing unregistered girls in a public bar, and (2) employing unregistered assistants in a private bar. His Worship ruled that two offences were charged, inasmuch as the words “bar or private bar” were used. Mr. Ostler then explained that the information was laid under the following section of tlie. Licensifig Act: “After the first day of June, 1911,. save as provided by this section, no female shall bo employed in any capacity in or about the bar of any licensed premises at any time ; >y}ijle, the .jipr is open for the sale of liquor, tie claimed that a “private bar” was a place for the sale, of liquor, not opening directly on to a public street. ■ Briefly, be explained the history of what are now known as “private bars.” In 1893 it was made illegal, in consequence of a wave of temperance reform, to have more than one bar in any licensed house. Then some keen legal man discovered that the definition of a “bar” under the Act would not cover a place or room which did not “open directly on to a public street.” The result was that some hotels now carried on three to five distinct hotel businesses to all intents and purposes, for the payment of one license fee. Sergeant Kelly said he visited a private bar at the Adelphi Hotel on the 12th inst., when a young woman named Alberta Plum was assisting. She said that she was not registered, that she waa not entitled to be registered, and that-she had been employed in the hotel for eight or nine months. Mr. Wilford; It was not a public bar under the Licensing Act? Sergeant Kelly: No; it was a circular bar, divided into two, one part public, the other part private. Mr. Wilford: In what respect was it private ? The Sergeant: It is not private. The only “public bar” in the place rt marked “private.” The bar in winch the lady in question was was not private at all. Mr. Wilford: Not in the sense that you mean. The Sergeant: The drinks cost more there than they do in the other bar (the 4d bar). Mr. Wilford: Then the bar that is supposed to be “private” is public, and that which is supposed to be public is marked “private.” The Sergeant: Yes. Mr. Ostler: Then they ought to be prosecuted for having two public bars. In a brief summary, Mr. Ostler reminded the Court that no unregistered 1 females were to ho employed (under i the Act) in or about bars unless they I were “the wife, sister, or daughter of the publican.’ At this stage the hearing was adjourned.