THE THEATRE DOOR.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 128, 1 June 1926, Page 19

THE THEATRE DOOR.

TIME OF OPENING. PROTECTING THE PUBLIC. CHEISTCHURCH BY-LAW CASE. fRy Telegraph.—Press Association.! CHRISTCHURCH, Monday. _ The manager of the last J. C. Williamson company to visit Christchurch, A. R. Shepard, was charged at the Magistrate's Court to-day before Mr. H. A. Young, with failing, on May 22, to ensure that the Theatre Royal was opened to the public for at least half an hour before the performance on the payment of the minimum advertised prices, and also with issuing a ticket other than with the number of a particular seat in the theatre printed upon it. Mr. Loughnan, for -the City Council, said that the object of the section under which the information was laid was to protect those members of the public who were unable or unwilling to reserve ft seat. The section made it necessary for the theatre to be accessible half an hour at least before the performance started. The second information was laid on account of certain tickets having been issued without numbers corresponding to the numbers of the particular seats as the by-law required. . Charles E. Agar, company manager and chairman of the By-laws Committee, said that he went with friends to the Theatre Royal to a vaudeville matinee. Hβ bought 3/ dress circle seat 9 and was told that he could take any seats that were turned down. He was '.old he could have seats which were not turned down on payment of 1/ a seat. He saw defendant and asked if under the by-law he could not take any seat for 3/ not actually reserved half an hour before the performance commenced. Shepard said he was manager and was running his business in his own way. Witness went back and took certain seats, but he was told that they were reserved at the BristoL He asked to be shown seats he could have on the payment of an extra shilling, and he was shown two rows on the box plan. On principle he asked for his money back and left the theatre. Witness said that as chairman of the By-laws Ccmmittee of the City Council he was not aware that the section applying to each seat ticket being numbered was rot carried out by the Christchurch theatres. Mr. Batchelor, for defendant, contended that the council could not point out a single theatre in the city where this practice of keeping certain seats for sale .at the reserved price was not carried out. In respect of the other information, there was no theatre in the town where the section was carried out, and it would be extremely difficult to have every ticket numbered to apply to a particular seat. In the gallery of the Theatre Royal it would be impossible. Mr. Loughnan, in reply, said that the management's idea of what seats were reserved did not agree with the public's view. The public naturally considered those seats reserved which had been previously bought for the performance, but the management withheld or reserved rows of seats themselves in the "hope of selling them later at the reserved price. The magistrate said that under the by-law it seemed that any pereon paying the 3/ was entitled to take seats which were not reserved half an hour before the performance commenced. On the second information also a breach had been committed. Defendant was ordered to pay costs and solicitor's fee.