ALLEGED FAILURE TO SUPPLY MEAL

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27169, 13 October 1953, Page 11

ALLEGED FAILURE TO SUPPLY MEAL

Receptionist’s Mistake In Time CHARGE AGAINST TRUST LICENSEE DISMISSED A charge against Desmond Herford Hancock, the licensee of the Hotel Devon, Ashburton (Mr C. S. Thomas) of refusing to supply meals to travellers, Eric Roland D’Anvers and Muriel Gladys D’Anvers, was dismissed by Mr E. A. Lee, S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court at Ashburton yesterday. Hancock pleaded not guilty. D’Anvers said that he and his wife travelled from Christchurch to Timaru on September 24. They tried to get lunch at the Somerset Hotel in Ashburton, but on learning that there were only bars in that hotel, they went to the Devon, arriving there at 1.25 p.m. A waitress in the diningroom told them that they would have to get tickets from the reception desk, but there they were told that as it had gone 1.30 lunch was not on. D* An vers’s watch showed 1-25, its accuracy being checked by the Post Office clock when he went there immediately by car. He returned to the hotel and asked to see the manager, but was told he was in town. D’Anvers was then offered two lunch tickets, which he refused as he “could not enjoy or appreciate it.” In reply to Mr Thomas, D’Anvers said he had been an accountant for several hotels in Christchurch. He did not remember having expressed a dislike of licensing trust hotels, but said he felt that the public had been given something they did not vote for. He had been annoyed when he was told lunch was off, and might have said: “It’s no wonder the trust doesn’t pay.” He did not take the lunch tickets later “as the receptionist gave the impression that as the manager was away she was going to have an early afternoon off, and I did not want to stop her.” “Put it down to temperament,” he said in reply to Mr Thomas’s question as to why he did not accept the receptionist’s apology. “These proceedings should be dismissed as trivial,” said Mr Thomas, “but although it is not important, the trust does not regard it as a small matter, and wants all the facts brought out.” The trust welcomed casuals, 20 to 25 per cent, of its meals being served to persons in that category. “I suggest that D*Anvers was an angry man because of the delay at the Somerset and because he had to get tickets,” said Mr Thomas. “The receptionist did not get a chance to offer him a meal, although on the chance that he would return, lunch had been prepared when it was realised that the clock in the hotel was fast.” “I doubt very much if the receptionist’s mistake in time is a sufficient excuse for not permitting D’Anvers to have a meal, but in view of the fact that a meal was offered immediately the mistake was discovered the case will be dismissed,” said the Magistrate.