AUCKLAND LICENSING COMMITTEE

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 253, 9 July 1926, Page 4

AUCKLAND LICENSING COMMITTEE

MEMBER TAKEN TO TASK

“GRAVE DERELICTION OF PUBLIC DUTY”

BY TEMGBAFH.—PRESS ASSOCIATION. Auckland, July 8.

The absence of Mr. A. Thompson ffrom the meeting of the Auckland Licensing Committee, when the Ambassadors Hotel license was granted, was considered at a meeting of the executive of the Council of Christian Congregations on July 1.

Resolutions were carried at that meeting relative to Mr. Thompson’s explanation of- his absence, and on the next day were forwarded to him by letter. Mr. 'Thompson was given time in which to reply to the resolutions before they were published, but as six days have elapsed without his breaking silence, Dr: H. Ranston, president of the council, has decided to make the council’s resolutions public, a course of which Mr. Thompson has had six days’ notice. The text of the resolutions carried on July 1 is as follows: "That the executive of the Council of Christian Congregations regards as entirely unsatisfactory the explanation made to representatives of the council by Mr. A. Thompson respecting his absence from the Auckland Licensing Committee when it was dealing for a second time with the Ambassadors Hotel license, and further having seen a copy of a letter endorsed, by Mr. Thompson, and signed by his solicitor, which is in substance the explanation given to the council’s representatives, is strongly of opinion that the reasons given do-’not justify Mr. Thompson's absence from the meeting, and therefore he does not stand acquitted of a grave dereliction of public duty.”