CHARGES AGAINST HOTELKEEPERS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9154, 30 July 1908, Page 5

CHARGES AGAINST HOTELKEEPERS.

BY TEL3GRAFH—PEEBS ASSOCIATION. INVERCARGILL, July 29. John Afleck was charged to-day with permitting drunkenness on his licensed premises at Wallacetown, seven miles out of town. The defence was that the alleged drunken man (Leary Powell, owner of the hotel and the formtr licensee) was not drunk, but being an old man had collapsed in the hotel bar owing to a sudden fit of weakness. Judgment was reserved. *S>EW PLYMOUTH, July 29 In the Magistrate's Court to-day, before Mr Fitzherbert, S.M , the UceßS.ee of the Taranaki Hotel, pleaded not guilty to a charge of pelmitting drunkenness r,n his licence. premises on Juna 13th. Evidence was gives) to the efftct. that three prominent local \residents spent a day at the hotel, most of the time in a bedroom, from which they were takjn away by friends and the police, respectively, the latter alleging that the men were intoxicated. For the deforce* it w , s. contended that the men were not drunk, and no drink was supplied i|i the bedroom in which champagne bottles were found by the police, one at least bearing the label of another hotel. One witness alleged that it had been sent out for. His Worship, said it was necessary for a conviction that these people should be drunk, and the hotelkeeper or his servants should know they drunk. There was some evidence thnt one man was drunk. On the evidence before him, however, His Worship came to the conclusion that neither the licensee nor his servants had any knowledge that this man was drunk. He therefore dismissed the information.

It is very probable that the decision will be appealed against.