Magistrate’s Court Garage Fined £35 For Unlicensed Petrol Sale

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28440, 21 November 1957, Page 19

Magistrate’s Court Garage Fined £35 For Unlicensed Petrol Sale

Fines amounting to £35 were imposed on a Woodend garage, the Duvauchelle Service Station, Ltd., by Mr Rex C. Abernethy, S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday, on two charges of committing breaches of the Motor Spirits Distribution Act. Mr G. S. Brockett appeared for the company and entered pleas of not guilty. Mr P. T. Mahon prosecuted for the Department of Industries and Commerce. Mr Mahon said that a Department of Industries and Commerce inspector called at the de-

fendant company’s service station at Woodend on July 5 and bought two gallons of petrol. The petrol came from a 44-gallon drum on the back of a truck in the yard, and the proprietor of the service station made two trips to put it in the car’s tank with a one-gallon container. “There is a background to this prosecution,” Mr Mahon said. Three applications by the company for a licence to retail petrol had been refused by the Motor Spirits Licensing Authority. The company had twice appealed unsuccessfully. “The question is whether the sale is completed when the petrol is in the container or after it is reunited in the tank,” Mr Brockett said. By putting the petrol in the car tank in two separate lots, the company had kept itself outside the statutory definition of a motor spirits retailer.

“That is a subterfuge to get around the act,” Mr Mahon said. “No Court, I submit, could tolerate a device of this kind. “It is quite apparent that this company has been unable to get a licence, and notwithstanding has been carrying on business illegally and to the detriment of other people who are operating in the area, and who are protected by law,” Mr Mahon said. The second charge referred to the sale of a 44-gallon drum of petrol to a local farmer, he said.

Mr Brockett said that the defendant had not sold the petrol to the farmer. It had merely obtained it for him from a Kaiapoi firm.

“The defendant company has seen fit to sell petrol in open defiance of the Motor Spirits Distribution Act,” the Magistrae said. ‘‘Mr Brockett’s interpretation of a retailer is ingenious, but I am quite unable to find the slightest merit in the division in to two separate sales. There was only one sale here—the sale of two gallons.”

UNREGISTERED DOG John Stephen Delaby Lowry did not appear to answer a charge of keeping an unregistered dog. The charge was brought by the Christchurch City Council, represented by Mr A. Hearn, who said that City Council officers were exercising their authority in prosecuting owners of unregistered dogs. In imposing a fine of £1 the Magistrate said that owners of unregistered dogs had better take notice that the council was on the warpath. DESERTION FROM SHIP Septimus Ronald Skates, aged 24. a ship’s electrician, charged with deserting from the overseas ship Taranaki, was released on bail in his own recognisance of £lOO pending deportation.

PROHIBITED IMMIGRANT Derk Jim Lok. aged 23, a seaman (Mr A. D. Holland), was released on probation for two years pending deportation on a charge that, being a prohibited immigrant, he entered New Zealand without a permit. (Before Mr E. A. Lee, S.M.) CLAIM FOR DAMAGES G. Leutwyler (Mr B. S. McLaughlin) claimed £73 4s lOd from Donald Henry Aldridge (Mr R. Twyneham) for damages to a motor-car in an accident on August 30 in Carlyle street. The plaintiff was given judgment for £36 12s sd.