MAGISTRATE’S COURT

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29102, 14 January 1960, Page 7

MAGISTRATE’S COURT

WEDNESDAY (Before Mr N. M. Izard, SM.) LICENSING BREACHES “I appreciate the difficulty of hotels in a port such as Lyttelton in policing the admission of guests of lodgers, but it is my duty to administer the law,” said the Magistrate when he fined Bruce iflonk, licensee of the Royal Hotel, Lvttelton, £lO on a charge of selling liquor after hours on July 25. Charges of opening the premises after hours and exposing liquor for sale after hours were, dismissed. John Patrick Loader, a barman, was fined £3 for supplying liquor after hours. Both men, who were represented by Mr R. B. Shand, pleaded not guilty to the charges. Sergeant J. E. O’Regan gave evidence of seeing two seamen leave the hotel, each carrying a parcel of beer, at 8.25 p.m. They were accompanied back to the hotel, and when questioned in Monk’s presence the men said they had purchased the liquor at the hotel.

“The licensee accepted responsibility for the barman’s actions and said it had been a ‘fair catch’,” said Sergeant O’Regan. Loader, in evidence, said he answered the door and two strangers asked to see a Mr Dempsey, who was booked into the hotel. The men were brought into the hotel by Mr Dempsey, who later asked if he could purchase some bottled beer. He did not ask who was paying for the beer; he thought it was for Mr Dempsey, the defendant said.

Mr Shand referred to the difficulty of hotel-keepers in a port such as Lyttelton, where seamen were “coming and going," of policing the admissions of guests of bona fide lodgers. PROBATIONER DISCHARGED Roger George Allen, aged 21, a farm hand, who had previously pleaded guilty to a charge of a breach of probation at Keri Keri on November 9, in that he failed to live and work as directed by a probation officer, was convicted and discharged after the Probation Officer (Mr J. H. Jeffery) told the Magistrate that Allen had returned to Whangarei, as directed by Mr Raymond Ferner, S.M., and had reported to the Probation Officer there. THEFT CHARGE

Henry Herbert Pearce, aged 59, charged with the theft of electric light fittings valued at 10s, the property of the D.1.C., Ltd., was remanded to January 21. Bail was allowed at £25, with a similar surety, Pearce to report daily to the police.