LICENSEE FINED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 January 1939, Page 8

LICENSEE FINED

PREMISES USED AS GAMING HOUSE. BETS TAKEN TO OBLIGE CUSTOMERS. (Ey Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. “Quite often where reputable persons make one slip the Racing Commission lif'r. the ban," said Mr Levvey, S.M., in Cour!, this morning when Oliver Francis Watson, licensee of the Lancaster Park Hotel and a racehorse owner, pleaded guilty to a charge of using the public bar of his premises as a common gaming house. He was fined £25. The Magistrate's remarks were made in reply to counsel, who said a conviction would affect Watson as a racehorse owner and debar him from attending meetings. He asked the Magistrate to consider this when deciding on the penalty. As the results of complaints, said De-tective-Sergeant Sinclair. the police had placed the hotel under observation. Within a period of a month or more the police had discovered that twenty-four bets had been taken. The largest of these had been for 10s. The police intended that the prosecution should be a warning to other hotelkeepers who were carrying on in w the same manner. Watson told the police that he had taken bets to oblige customers. If he had not done so his customers would have gone to another hotel. Watson had not been in any sort of trouble before. Apparently the accused was not in business in a big way.