Minister backs pub raffles

Press, 26 June 1978, Page 6

Minister backs pub raffles

A Cabinet Minister has advised sports clubs to push ahead with quickfire raffles in hotel bars, in spite of a police warning that they might be outside the law. The Minister of Internal Affairs (Mr Highet) whose portfolio covers gaining and lotteries, said last evening that in his opinion a prosecution was unlikely. The intention of recent legislation governing quickfire raffles had been to ensure that they were legal, whatever view the police might take of it, Mr Highet said. If the legislation did not do this, he would see it was amended so that the

raffles were inside the law. Mr Highet was speaking after a police warning that the traditional pub raffles were on the verge of being thrown out of- hotels throughout New Zealand. Sports clubs, in particular, smelt disaster, and their secretaries were on the telephone to Mr Highet’s home most of yesterday to say so. For many clubs the raffling of a few sides of ham or a leg of beef in a public bar has long been a bountiful fund-raiser. In Auckland alone hundreds of club members are out every Friday evening touridg crowded bars with a book of 20c tickets

in one hand and a bag of meat in the other. Ironically, Mr Highet was trying to help them when he introduced his Gaming and Lotteries Bill in Parliament last year. “We were advised that these raffles could have been ruled illegal,” he said. “The bill we introduced was to legalise them.” - Instead, the possibly ambiguous wording of an important condition had put the existence of the raffles much more at risk. One of the conditions of the act limits the sale of tickets in quickfire raffles to persons “attending the same premises for the pur-

pose of a special sporting, or similar gathering.” Police legal experts have decided that the casual crowd assembled in a hotel bar does not fit this definition, although;. they have yet to test their opinion in a court case. The final twist to the lottery law as far as the police are concerned is that they have no real objection to pub lotteries arid would be quite happy for them to continue if the law permitted. In Auckland, Chief Superintendent K. G. Sykes said he was unaware of any police pressure to put an end to the drinkers’ 20c investments.