BREACH OF THE LICENSING ACT.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 11151, 18 December 1901, Page 4

BREACH OF THE LICENSING ACT.

CASE BEFORE THE COURT.

Frank Mulholland, licensee of the Bower Hotel, New Brighton, was charged before Mt Bishop, S.M., yesterday, with supplying liquor after licensed hours to. n«ntravefiera on the 30th November, and with keeping open after hours, on the same day. The charges were taken together, and. Mr Kippenberger appeared for the defence. .Constable Rowe deposed that he entered the hotel at 10.40 p.m., and found the proprietor in the lighted bar, together with William Rosmer, _yictor Collett, Richard Mackay, Frank King, Stephen Walker, and Herbert Collins, who were all standing with him, drinking. He took the names of all present, and. reminded the licensee of the time. The men began to say that they 'were travellers, but were enjoined by Mwholland to keep quiet, as the constable knew what-he was doing. Collett, Collins and Mackay lived at New Brighton, and the other three actually were travellers. ' Quite a dozen men haa entered the hotel between lfr o'clock and 10.40, and, watching from outside, witness had seen all of them have drinks.

Richard Mackay stated that on the 30th he was'staying at New Brighton, about two or two and a aajf miles from the Bower. He' called at the hotel' for a drink, but only because he saw the door open, and thought that it could not bo ten o'clock

Victor , Collett, a resident of Colombo, street* Sydenham, said that he had been staying at New Brighton at the time in question. He had .seen no watch, but would swear that it was not 10.40 when the constable entered. He had cycled from town., with the wind at his back, and'had noticed the time at the Clock Tower. He had ridden afterwords, moreover, from the Bower to the beach, and then walked his bicycle a third, of a mile along the beach home. Wien he got there it was only-eleven o'clock. Mr Kippenberger asked that in the event of a conviction it should only i>6 upon the one charge, and this was agreed to. Sub* Inspector Black explained that the double charge had only been laid so that if the prosecution failed on one branch of it, the other might be taken up. .-. . . Mr Kippenberger then said that the defendant had not noticed that it was past ten

o'clock, or that other men had come in in addition to those he was serving at that hour. The door had been left open inadvertently. Mulholland was convicted, and fined 60s and costs on the charge of keeping open after licensed hours.