SMOKE CONCERTS, ETC.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10429, 21 September 1911, Page 4

SMOKE CONCERTS, ETC.

Mr J. W. Card will not accept our challenge; but he persists in saying that it is an offence to consume liquor <at a banquet or smoke concert in a No-license area. The only support he luas to his contention is the mis-ft*eading of section 37 of the Act of last session, and a Magisterial decision in Gore. The section of ilie Act, referred to makes it an offence r, o keep a building a.s a place or •resort for the consumption of alcoholic liquor. ,An oyster saloon (as <at Gore) might readily be construed ifls a. place or resort which is "kept" 'for the purpose of the consumption. !*>f alcoholic liquor, seeing that it i a common eating and drinJSng ihouse. A public .building, a lodgeroom 1 , or private premises could not be .so construed. Mr Card knows that it could not. He knowis perfectly well, or he sihould know, that the opinions of (the highest legal a.ufthorities an New Zealand have been taken on tlhe matter, and that these have held ,that it-is "not" am offence within the Act ito consume liquor at la .smoke concert or a banquet, unless it can be shown that the places iat which such -banquets or' coniceris are held are places commonly kept or* used for the purpose and) no other. If Mr Card is not wiling to Hlake thie opinion of the Grown Law (Officers (we will undertake- to fur'nisK Mm' with that opinion if hie so desires) let Mm test the position by entering a prosecution, as foe Js entitled to do, in respect to the next held in Masterton at' which liquor is consumed. He will fhleui probably discover that he is placing <quite an erroneous interpretation up. /on the Act. . '