WHAT IS A PUBLIC BAR?

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 34, 3 November 1917, Page 8

WHAT IS A PUBLIC BAR?

MAGISTERIAL DECISION. In tho Magistrate's Court yesterday afternoon Mr. S. E. M'Carthj', S'.M., delivered reserved judgment in the case in which tho police proceeded against A. B. Durrani', licensee of tho New Commercial Hotel. Tho information alleged that the defendant employed a female in tho bar of the hotel, the person so employed not being a duly registered barmaid. She was employed in tho bottle store connected with tho hotel, and the question submitted to the Court by Mr. H. P. O'Leary, who appeared for the defendant at the hearing, was whether a bottle store came within tbo definition of a public or private bar. In the course of his judgment tho Magistrate, after quoting cases, said: "There is no distinction in the method of using public or private bars; whilst the former open immediately on to a street, the others do not.' Bottle or bottling 6tores are fitted up precisely as a public or a private bar,'with the exception of the absence of beer pumps, and are served by a bar-tender, male or female. The admission in the present case is that no liquor is consumed in the bottling store, and by that admission' tho Court is bound. Is, then, a bottling store a public bar? /

After quoting the opinion of the Chief Justice (Sir Robert Stout), Mr. Justice Edwards, Mr. Justice Cooper, and Mr. i Justice Denniston as to the definition of b bar, the Magistrate said that in his opinion the bottle store in question, apart from the question of the nonconsumption of liquor therein, was a public bar within the meaning of the licensing legislation in that it was a room opening immediately on to a street. If, however, it was not a public bar, it was clearly a private bar. If the nonconsumption of liquor were a material factor, a licensee could have as many public bars as he pleased as long as his guests refrained from consuming liquor therein. This, he contended, would be contrary to Section 200 of the principal Act, and would nullify the barmaid clauses in the Act of 1910. He had looked carefully through the Act, and could find no provision justifying the contention that no place could be a bar unless liquor was consumed therein. A licensee may sell liquor either for consumption on or off his premises. If, then,, he fitted out his bottle store as a bar' he could not prevent it being treated as a bar for all purposes by selling liquor there for off-consumption only. The defendant was convicted and fined £2, and ordered to pay costs amounting to £\ 13s.