A PUBLIC PLACE.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 18, 22 January 1926, Page 7

A PUBLIC PLACE.

BILLIARD SALOON DEFINED. CONVICTION FOR OBSCENE LANGUAGE. Ta a billiard saloon a public place? That was the question which cropped up in a case heard the other day. causing Mr. J. W. Poynton, S.M., to deliver his reserved decision on the matter at the Police Court this morning. The prosecution was against John •Tack Ellis for using obscene language in a billiard saloon. Mr. Poynton said that a number of public places were mentioned in the Police OiTences Act. but there was no reference to a billiard room. A private billiard room would not be a public place, but a public 'billiard room would, he thought, be such a place. It must be licensed. It must be under control. It must be closed at certain hours. It was a place where games were played for payment, that was, payment to •the proprietor for the use of the tables. It was to his interest that the public should patronise his rooms. In Xew South Wales it had been held that a shop was a public place, and the same reasoning applied to billiard rooms, except that women or children did not frequent them. Even a private house and garden might be a public place temporarily if thrown open for a charitable purpose. The tendency in Gaming Acts and similar provisions for correcting abuses was to extend and not restrain the meaning "place," and there was no violence done to the spirit of the Act in including a billiard room a3 a public place. Defendant was convicted and ordered to pay costs.