GUESTS IN A HOTEL.

Taranaki Daily News, 23 August 1922, Page 7

GUESTS IN A HOTEL.

■the RIGHT TO TREAT. IMPORTANT LAW POINT. A question having far-reaching effects on the rights of lodgers in an hotel to treat guests to alcoholic refreshment during closed hours was submitted to Mr. Justice Chapman at the Supreme Court at New Plymouth yesterday. It has 'been generally accepted that, provided one was a bona fide guest of a lodger in an hotel, the lodger could be supplied with refreshment for the guest, but a recent decision of Mr. A. M. Mowlem, S.M., at Waitara puts this in doubt. Briefly stated, Mr. Mowlem convicted Frederick Locke, licensee of the Waitara Hotel, for supplying liquor after hours, and also for keeping his premises open for the sale of liquor. These convictions were the subject of the appeal yesterday. Mr. P. O’Dea appeared for the appellant, and Mr. C. H. Weston for the respondent, Senior-Sergt. H. McOrorie.

An agreed statement of facts was put before His Honor instead of calling evidence, which led His Honor to observe that the Supreme Court of Victoria refused to act on a case stated without evidence. An appeal from a conviction was supposed to give the evidence on which the conviction was -based.

The statement submitted to His Honor set out that on the night of the alleged offence certain lodgers were in the telephone and the commercial rooms of the hotel. Each of the lodgers had guests, for whom they bought and paid for refreshment supplied by the wife of the licensee. The statement agreed that the guests were intimate friends of the lodgers, and not casual acquaintances, and that this fact was known to the licensee and his wife.

The argument of both counsel was practically confined to the licensing legislation passed from time to time, and to quotations from decisions on cases bearing on the points at issue by His Honor and other Judges on the Bench, Mr. O’Dea contending that the lodger had the right to treat guests, while Mr. Weston took the opposite view. Mr. Weston agreed that the lodger could be supplied, but the liquor must, be for his own use and be consumed by him. The Licensing Act Amendment Act of 1904, Mr. Weston said, included three very important alterations in the law. Section 38 cut out the bona fide traveller altogether from his benefits; section 42 introduced the law regarding persons being found on licensed premises during closed hours, and section 45, he submitted, completely altered the law regarding the right of a lodger to treat his friends (luring closed hours.

Tn outling his argument, Mr. O’Dea said the case was an important one. There had been no authoritative decision on the rights of lodgers in New Zealand during the last 20 years. If his friend’s contention that the lodger had no right to treat his guests was right it was a very startling assumption. There had been innumerable cases bearing on this particular point during the last eighten years and this was the first he had heard of in which such an interpretation had been given to the Act. Aftering hearing both counsel, and the authorities quoted, his Honor intimated that he would consider the matter. There was also the question of the second charge, of which there was no evidence in the statement, and Mr. Weston relied on the admissibility of certain evidence which had been given in a previous case, when the guests were convicted of being illegally on the premises. Mr. O’Dea contended that no conviction could be recorded on such evidence.