Club’s licence suspended

Press, 2 June 1982, Page 2

Club’s licence suspended

The Licensing Control Commission has suspended the Ellesmere Country Club’s licence for a fortnight from June 3 as the result of an application by an inspector of chartered clubs. The application was heard in Christchurch in April .this year. The club intended to go to the High Court to seek a judicial review of the Licensing Control Commission’s decision, said the club’s president, Mr J. Newton, last evening. The two-week suspension would obviously involve loss of revenue, he said, but he had no further comment to make at this stage. Evidence given at the hearing by the club’s accountant/ Mr G. A. Fisher, and quoted in the commission’s decision said, “The utility of the club in financial terms to survive a suspension is questionable.",: The chairman of the commission, Judge G. B. Fea, said that this was not evidence that impressed him at all. ' •' - “If the club is so heavily reliant on bar trading to survive, as it appears, its function as a club within the meaning of the act is questionable, to say the least,” Judge Fea said. The club membership fee, which is minimal, should be

increased instead, he said. At the hearing.in April, the commission was told that the club’s visitors’ book showed that for 12 months to’ December 31, 1981, a total of 15,887 people had visited the club. Of those, 6033 were identifiable as members of other clubs and there were 9854 others. Evidence was given by a number of persons who were not members of the 'club, but who had gone there with other non-member ' friends for a meal and a drink at the bar. They had signed the visitors’ book but their entry had not been challenged, and under the law, thdy had no right to be there. Judge Fea, in his decision, said the commission had found that breaches of a condition of the club charter occurred on four separate

occasions when visitors were supplied with liquor. In addition, the visitors’ book showed that the club's rules regarding admission of visitors were consistently ignored, he said. “The books show that the signatures of an introducing member were the exception rather than, the rule in the year to November, 1981, ahd even after that date there were still a number of instances where there was no. such signature,” he said. “The club is not before us for breach of its own rules but this evidence is relevant, in our view, to the question of permitting unauthorised entry by closing one’s eyes to a state of affairs. “A casual glance at almost any page of the visitors’ book would have revealed that the club’s rules were not being

observed, and that state of affairs continued after the hearing in April, 1981 — a fact .we find extraordinary.

“The visitors’ book shows that an inordinate number of visitors have been using the club: That there should be 15,887 visitors, at least, in the 1981 year, we find incredible and incompatible with the concept of a club catering for the private social intercourse. convenience, and comfort of its members. “We do not find it believable that the committee could have been unaware of visiting in these numbers. We think it closed its eyes to that possibility." Taking everything into consideration, Judge Fea said, the commission did not think that it was a case of requiring revocation of the club charter, but the commission thought that a period of suspension was required. The commission suspended the charter from midnight on June 3 to midnight on June 16.