LIQUOR AT DANCE

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20987, 14 December 1939, Page 10

LIQUOR AT DANCE

THREE MEN FINED OFFENCES OF SERIOUS NATURE 17 FULL BOTTLES IN CAR Brought under the recentlyenacted amendment to the Police Offences Act, 1927, which makes it an offence for a person to have liquor in his possession in the vicinity of a dance hall while a dance is in progress, three charges were heard before Mr S. L. Paterson, S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court, Hamilton, today. The offences took place at Frankton on November 28, the defendants being Colin Thomas Bell, of Rototuna, George Frederick William Fiscther, barman, of Te Awamutu, and Leslie Vincent Mathers, sharemilker, of Te Awamutu. Beil and Mathers pleaded guilty and Fiscther not guilty. Constable K. N. Crisp stated that at 8.50 p.m. on November 28, while a dance was in progress in the Frankton Town Hall, a car stopped in an empty section nearby. Parcels were handed out of the car but witness could not see what they were. Between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. people were seen walking between the car and the hall, and witness summoned Sergeant H. Fryer. In the car were two men and two women. Mathers was in the vehicle, and when asked if he had any liquor, he said he had only two bottles. An investigation revealed that there were 17 full bottles of beer and five empty bottles in the car. In a statement made to the police Mathers said he had some beer which he had bottled from a keg. While he was at the dance he met two men named Bell and drove them to their home, where they picked up ten large bottles of beer. Five bottles were drunk before the police arrived. Mathers and Bell both said in their statements that they did not know it was an offence to have liquor near a dance hall while a dance was in progress.

“These cases are of a serious nature,” said the magistrate. “The consequences of taking and consuming liquor in the vicinity of dance hails, and particularly of drinking liquor in cars, have been very serious and have led the Legislature to make such an action an offence. These offences will be treated as of a serious nature and the fines will not be light.” Each of the defendants was fined £5 and costs.