DELIVERY OF LIQUOR.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 223, 20 September 1929, Page 10

DELIVERY OF LIQUOR.

IMPORTANT DECISION. "DOOR OPEN TO EVADE ACT." (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) LEVIN, Thursday. 4n; important judgment arfecting the sale and delivery of liquor was given by Mr J. L. Stout, S.M., in the Magistrates Court to-day. The case was one m which Richard Watts, secretary of a football club, and Evan Jones, licensee ot the.Levin Hotel, were charged, the former with beinrr on licensed premises after hours, and the latter with selling liquor and keeping his premises open for sale during prohibited hours. It was stated that Watts purchased and paid for a jar of beer in the afternoon, and the barman placed the jar in a. cupboard. Watts forgot to call for the beer until the evening, when he was found by a constable leaving the hotel with the jar under his arm, and on his way to a football smoke concert. The magistrate found that the Court was bound by the English decision in the case of Bristow v. Piper (1915), and that, the sale was completed by the payment and appropriation of goods during legitimate hours. The informations therefore were dismissed.

"It is true," said the magistrate, "that this decision opens a very wide door to $vado tho provisions of the Licensing Act, but that is a matter for the Legislature, which can close the door by decreeing tbftt a contract is incomplete • until the- purchaser takes actual delivery of the liquor"