Liquor Sales Unlawful During Licensing Poll

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27992, 12 June 1956, Page 8

Liquor Sales Unlawful During Licensing Poll

SUPREME COURT

It is unlawful to sell liquor between noon and 7 u.m. on the day of an election for the elective members of a licensing committee. This decision was given in the Supreme Court yesterday by Mr Justice Adams in his reserved judgment on an appeal by John Fraser, licensee of Warner’s Hotel, against his conviction by Mr Raymond Ferner. S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court, on a charge of selling liquor on March 8. 1955, at a time when the premises should have been closed. Dismising Fraser’s appeal, his Honour amended the conviction to one of selling liquor at a time when it was unlawful to do so. The appeal was heard on June 6, when Fraser was represented by Mr R. A. Young, and the police by the Crown Prosecutor (Mr A. W. Brown). “On October 5, 1955, Fraser was convicted in the Magistrate’s Court a t Christchurch, on an information charging him that, 1 being the licensee of Warner’s Hotel, he sold liquor at a time when the premises were required by statute to be closed. He was fined £5, with costs, and now appeals by .way of case stated on point of law,” said his Honour’s judgment. It was admitted or proved at the hearing in the Magistrate’s Court that the licensed premises were in the Christchurch Licensing District, that they were open on the afternoon of Tuesday, March 8, 1955, that liquor was then sold and that, on that day an election was held for the appoint-

ment of elective members of the Christchurch Licensing Committee. Apart from the fact that this election was being held, appellant would have been entitled to keep his premises open and to sell liquor. His Honour referred to the various acts and amendments concerning licensed premises and the sale of liquor. He said there was no statutory provision reouiring licensed premises to be closed on the occasion of a Licensing Committee election and the appellant was not guilty of the offence of which he was convicted — that of ’ selling liquor when his premises should have been closed. The Court had jurisdiction, as Mr Brown pointed out and Mr Young conceded, to amend the conviction by substituting the offence of selling liquor at a time when it was unlawful to do so because of the election.

“In my opinion, appellant was guilty of the offence of selling liquor on his premises at a time when, by the combined effect of Section 46 (2) of the Licensing Act and Section 128 (2) of the Electoral Act, it was unlawful so to do. The conviction is accordingly amended by substituting that offence for the offence mentioned in the conviction; and the appeal is dismissed. As, however, respondent has succeeded only by resort to an amendment of the conviction, and as both parties were concerned to have the law elucidated, there will be no order as to costs,” said the judgment.