KAMO SPRINGS HOTEL

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 941, 7 April 1930, Page 10

KAMO SPRINGS HOTEL

MOVE TO QUASH LICENCE SUPREME COURT SUIT Seeking to have the publican's licence fer the Kamo Springs Hotel quashed, two electors, William Gregory and James Jackson, applied to Mr. Justice Herdman in the Supreme Court today to issue a writ of certiorari against the Marsden Licensing Committee declaring its action to be invalid, Tho licence was granted by the Marsden Licensing Committee on June 11, to Walter Henry Cuthbert. The licensee, with the Whangarei Hospital Board, were cited as additional defendants. The issue raised important, legal interpretations of the; Licensing Act and its amendments, with particular relation to the Ashburton licensing case to go before the Privy Council. The licence was originally held at an hotel which was situated about 12 miles away from the present Kamo hostelry and lapsed in 1917. For the petitioners, Mr. Tuck contended that the licence which lapsed in 1917 could only have been restored at tho annual meeting that year, or at tho annual meeting of 1918, within the specified distance under the terms of the Licensing Act. No attempt to regain the licence was made until Juen 11 last year, when the Marsden Licensing Committee authorised the Kamo Springs Hotel. I-Ie contended that the plai nand obvious meaning of section 30, and subsections 1 and 2 of the Licensing Act was its disabling effect. The section prohibited tho granting of new licences with three exceptions, the third being forfeiture, non renewal or lessor, and it gave authority for the restoration of licences at either the annual meeting of the year in which the licence lapsed or was not renewed, or the following meeting. NOT DESTROYED BY POLL Richmond, for the respondents, pointed out that the essential destination between this and the Ashburton case was that the Kamo licence had. never been destroyed by a poll. If a licence was wiped out by a poll it could not be renewed, and in this case the Kamo licence would have remained in existence. Not like the Ashburton case, where the licences disappeared. The Kamo licence lapsed through wish or remissiveness of the publican and not through any fault of the electors, and, therefore, he contended the licence should continue. The policy of the Act, as dealt with by the Judges in the Ashburton case was not applicable to this case, said Mr. Richmond. He pointed to the view of Mr. Justice Ostler who held that the number of licences should remain the same as at the last poll. If this licence was irrevocably lost, then the number of licences would not be the same as at the last poll. He argued that subsection 201 section 30 did not exclude the right to apply for a renewal at a meeting subsequent to the first annual meeting after forfeiture. The section did not state that the application for restoration could not be made at any other annual meeting except the first after forfeiture. He contended that as the right to maintain the number of licences to that at the last poll was conferred by the Act subsection 2 could not give the right to reduce the number. . Hi s Honour: It would be interesting to see what the Privy Council has to say. Counsel submitted that where power Si X° n £or lhe renewal of licences at tho first annual meeting, then under the Acts Interpretation Act, lie contended this authority could’ be exercised at any subsequent annual meeting, provided the licence was not destroyed by a poll. His Honour expressed the opinion that the national poll determined the number of licences granted in New Zealand, and fixed a limit of time in which application for renewal could be made for a licence such as the Kamo Springs one, which had existed but had lapsed. Mr. Tuck, in reply, argued that the suggestion that a licence, which had lapsed, could be renewed at any annual meeting was absurd. Decision was reserved.