Police clamp on pyramid parties

Press, 11 July 1980, Page 2

Police clamp on pyramid parties

PA Aucklanc The police have decided tc crack down on pyramid par ties. The decision to raid the parties was announced yesterday by the officer ir charge of Wellington C. 1.8.. Detective Chief Inspector P McE. Faulkner. However, Auckland partygoers told reporters that the money-fests would continue. “All the police will do is drive them underground,” said one Auckland woman. The police decision to hit the parties followed a ruling by the legal section at Police Headquarters in Wellington that pyramid games contravened the Gaming and Lotteries Act. Aucklanders involved ir the games will not give details of plans for the parties to go on under cover, but it is likely, the parties will become smaller; car-pooling will be used to get people tc the parties, so that a large number of cars do not attract attention; and the parties will be held in private homes. One keen party-goer said the fact that the parties were now deemed illegal just “gave them added spice.”

d “It will not stop me and o lots of other people having r- fun,” he said. “You haven’t ie lived till you join a pyramid. 5- My wife and I have never n had so much fun in our ~ lives.” >. Ah Auckland company director yesterday faced the r- first prosecution in New e Zealand resulting from a ». pyramid game. is Reginald Cook, aged 33, ” pleaded not guilty in the District Court at Dunedin to it a charge that he organised g the pyramid game, an illegal e game of chance. The charge n was laid under the Games i- and Lotteries Act. 1977. t- Counsel for Cook. (Mr C. S. Withnall), said the n prosecution had brought the ;- charge “by the way of a test is case.” it “It is not Cook who is on 11 trial — it is the game,” Mr g Withnall said. o Cook had taken part in a e game which was widespread it in Auckland and which he e believed to be legal, he said, i- An application for suppression of Cook’s name was d rejected and he was ree manded on $5OO bail to st August 8. Auckland’s arrests, Page 4.