LIQUOR IN KING COUNTRY.

Taihape Daily Times, 22 May 1919, Page 7

LIQUOR IN KING COUNTRY.

ADVERTISEMENT QUESTION. PROSECUTIONS DISMISED. TE KUITI. May 20. Mr E. W. Burton. S.M.. gave his decision to-day in a rather interesting phase of the licensing question in the King Country. Charges were brought against Wakeman Bros., Ltd., of Auckland and Christchurch, and Lines and Co.. of Hamilton, of soliciting orders for liquor in a proclaimed area by the publication of advertisements in the "King Country Chronicle," Auckland papers also being interested in the judgment. Mr G. P. Finlay was the defending counsel. The magistrate said, in the course of his decision, that, the form of advertisements in the present case were not of the alluring nature of those of certain previous cases. Wakeman Bros.' advertisement appeared not to exceed the tenor of an ordinary business card or announcement, simply informing the general public of the nature of the firm's business, where it was carried on, and other particulars, together with an intimation that if their commodities were required to be set down at flag stations the freight must be remitted. He held that the phraseology was wholly devoid of words or terms of solicitation, and the same remarks applied to the advertisement of Inncs and Co. It could not reasonably be contended that a wane and spirit merchant or brewer advertising only the place and nature of his business and his price

list in an Auckland newspaper, though daily circulating with"' the proclaimed aiv:i. did more than make the newspaper serve the office of a business directory. It could not be suggested that the end and aim of section 146 of the Act, read together with section 147, was to turn a no-license district into a species of blind community, whereby residents might be disabled from discovering by means of anything in the shape of a directory or a newspaper fulfilling the functions of a directory even the names of persons engaged" in the liquor trade. If an Auckland newspapers might serve the office of a business directory there was no reason 'why one published at Te Kuiti should not serve the same office. The prosecutions were all dismissed.