PRIZES OFFERED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 138, 13 June 1934, Page 14

PRIZES OFFERED.

SERIES OF PROSECUTIONS. HOTEL CASE AT NAPIER. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) „ NAPIER, Tuesday. Remarking that a conviction would entail penalties which the nature of the offence did not warrant, Mr. E. L. Walton, S.M., dismissed a charge against 'George A. Graham, licensee of the Caledonian Hotel, Napier, of having commenced a scheme whereby a prize was competed for by chance. The magistrate imposed a condition that defendant should subscribe £2 to the Hospital Board. Mr. Humphries, who appeared for defendant, entered a technical plea of not guilty. Senior-Sergeant Pender said that defendant had started a scheme whereby he gave out numbered tickets to his customers. He did not charge for the tickets. He selected a number which was known only to himself and which was announced at 5.30 p.m. on Fridays to people in the bar. The prize was six bottles of beer, or 5/. Defendant, when interviewed, admitted the facts of the case. He admitted he had issued about 1000 tickets in two weeks. He thought it only a trade scheme, and pointed out he did not charge for the tickets. The magistrate said he could not impose a fine without entering a conviction. The practice elsewhere, when it was recognised the consequences of a conviction would be more serious than usual, was to ask the defendant to undertake to contribute £2 to, say, a hospital. The matter in the present case would bo dismissed if the defendant made that undertaking. Counsel gave this undertaking, and ; the charge was dismissed.