LIQUOR DRUNK IN PIE CART

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25227, 4 July 1947, Page 3

LIQUOR DRUNK IN PIE CART

PREMISES CLASSED AS RESTAURANT

MAGISTATE’S DECISION Whether a coffee stall came under the definition of a restaurant was a question raised in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday, when the proprietor of the Majestic Coffee Stall in Bedford row, Wilfred Raymond Anderson Wilson (Mr J. K. Moloney), was charged with allowing liquor to be consumed in a restaurant at a time when licensed premises were required by law to be closed.

Senior-Sergeant G. H. L. Holt, who prosecuted, said that the case was probably the first of its type to be heard in New Zealand. The prosecution was for allowing liquor to be consumed in a restaurant, .he said. On the night in question. Wilson, who was the proprietor of the coffefe stall, had knowingly allowed liquor to be consumed in it. One patron, who had been seated inside, had drunk liquor there. When the cart was brought to the stand and made temporarily immovable by a series of legs or jacks, the police contended that it became premises for the time being, he said. A restaurant was defined by the Sale of Liquor Restrictions Act (1917) as being any premises in which food or refreshments of any kind were provided and sold to the general public for consumption on the premises. He gave a definition of "premises” as laid down by section 4 of the Licensing Act (1908), and quoted a decision of Mr J. H. Luxford, S.M., about premises constituting a restaurant. A constable gave evidence of visiting the pie-cart and finding a mdn drinking beer there. He asked him to come outside, and before complying, the man finished the drink.

Mr Moloney contended that "premises” implied some definite place with metes and bounds. The word did not include a public street. The pie-cart had no bounds on one side at all. It had a canvas flap with an opening in the middle. It was not a confined space—it was not limited, as persons could stand outside on the pavement and eat the goods sold. Mr Raymond Ferner, S.M., held that when a pie-cart was set up persons inside it were in premises, and fined Wilson £2. He warned the defendant not to permit the offence to occur again as the mini* mum fine for a second conviction was £25. Norman Lewis Taylor was also fined £2 for consuming liquor in a restaurant.