FRUIT MACHINES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 115, 18 May 1933, Page 10

FRUIT MACHINES.

ILLEGAL—MUST BE SOLD. TOBACCONISTS' DILEMMA. The disposal of two mint-vending ■machines, declared by a recent judgment of Mr. Justice Herdman to be illegal gaming apparatus, was a knotty point that occupied some time in the Magistrate's Court in Cliristchurch this week. The two machines are held by the police, following their confiscation from two Christcliurch billiards-room proprietors. Their former owners were given two rrlonths by Mr. E. D. Mosley, S.M., to sell the machines, outside of New Zealand. If they are not successful in this, the two .machines, which cost £80 each, will be forfeit to the State and destroyed.

The matter came before the Court when Leslie Scrimshaw, a tobacconist and. billiards-room proprietor, and. Herman Ernest Shutte, proprietor of a billiards-room, who hacl been convicted on charges of using their premises as common gaming .houses, appeared again for consideration of the question of disposal of the: machines. Chief-Detective Dunlop said' the charges were before the Court on August 18, 1932. Since then, Mr. Justice Herdman had given judgment declaring the mint-vending machines to be games of chance. The machines were valued at £80, and the police did not want to keep them, any longer. The owners could not now operate them. Scrimshaw said he understood that an aitachment was being sent out which would make them legal. The Magistrate: In that case we ought to keep them. Scrimshaw suggested that he and Shutte should be given an ojjportunity to sell the machines in some other country. "I believe they are legal in West Australia," he added. "I don't want to put temptation in the way of these men by allowing them to hold the machines," commented the magistrate. "Can the machines be rendered inoperative 1" Senior-Sergeant Dunlop: Only by destroying them. The magistrate suggested an adjournment of a month to allow the defendants to dispose of the machines outside of New Zealand. Scrimshaw said that a month was rather short. The agents for the machines had offered to help in disposing of them. The magistrate increased the time to two months. If the owners could not satisfy him that they had disposed of the machines at the end of that time tlici T would default to the Crown, and in nil probability their destruction would be ordered.