LIQUOR AFTER HOURS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 447, 31 August 1928, Page 13

LIQUOR AFTER HOURS

LICENSEE EXONERATED PORTER RESPONSIBLE The information against Henry M. Rider, licensee of the Esplanade Hotel, Devonport, who was charged at the Magistrate’s Court this morning with keeping open and selling liquor after hours, was dismissed by Mr. W. R. McIvean, S.M. Sub-Inspector McCarthy said that Mrs. Ramsay Smith, who was charged with being found on licensed premises after hours, had called at the Esplanade Hotel, where she had ordered a bottle of whisky, two bottles of ginger ale and a siphon of soda water. The porter had supplied her, carrying the parcels out to a motor-car which was waiting outside the hotel. Mr. Robert McVeagh said that the facts were substantially agreed upon. The whole question was whether the licensee was in any way responsible. He had not known of the transaction and it was not the duty of the porter to servo liquor except from the private “house bar” for residents. Mr. McVeagh suggested that the reason for the porter’s action was that he thought the liquor was for a doctor and that he had been employed as porter in the hospital, where the doctor’s word was law. Mr. W. R. McKean, S.M., agreed that the licensee was not responsible, the poi'ter having gone considerably beyond the scope of his duties. Nora Ramsay Smith, for whom Mr. R. A. Singer pleaded guilty, was fined £1 and costs, and the porter, Ronald Gardiner, was fined £1 10s and costs for supplying liquor after hours. Charges against Angus McKay and Andrew Stoddart of being found on licensed premises after-hours were dismissed, the evidence called for the defence by Mr. McLiver showing, in the opinion of the magistrate, that Stoddart was a genuine boarder and McKay was being entertained by him. A charge of exposing and selling liquor after hours preferred against Stephen Keogh, licensee of the Aurora .Hotel, where Stoddart and McKay were found, was dismissed.