SMOKE CONCERTS IN NOLICENSE DISTRICTS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10427, 19 September 1911, Page 5

SMOKE CONCERTS IN NOLICENSE DISTRICTS.

[To The Editor. ,]

•Sir, — In your issue of 11th. in&t., there, appeal's iifoo following paragraph:— "An advertisement in the Martinboraugih. paper states that the effect of No-license will he to make it illegal to have liquor at any banquet or smoke concert. It need hardly be said that this is contrary to fact." The statement is not contrary to fact, and it is not the mere unsupported testimony of any party. ri lt is the judicial intei-preta-tion of Section 37 of the licensing Amendment Act, 1910, as given by the Stiiponddary Magisitrate at Gore, in the Mataura No-Keen se District, in. April last. ..- The facts as outlined at the hearing were these: — A gentleman ordered a suppeir for himself and party at an oyister .saloon in ■Gore, and for the purpose of the supper sent to tihe saloon a quantity of liquor. The police arrived on the scene, and land an information against the proprietor of the oysteir saloon for ."permitting his. premises to be used a,s a resort for the consumption of alcoholic liquor." The Magistrate upheld the charge and" inflicted a flue of £3 ,and costs, remiarkarg' r;t the t:*nre tlhat lie made &r(e fine .low because it was .the first case of its kind under She new Act. This case is parallel with.' the ease of an otfsupier of any building in a Nolicense district letting a room for a banquet or smoke concert or any other entertainment where liquor is to be consumed. He would be lia- . a fine of £2O, and every person found on the .premises would be liable to a fine of £5, This is one of the "rardvileges" of living in a No¥cense district that Prohibition officials- and newspapers., apparently -don't like people to know.— I am, etc., J. W. CARD. Feather ston, 18th Sept., 1911.

<Referesnce to this mlatter is made in our leading columns. —Ed. Age.