AUTOMATIC VENDOR

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 175, 20 April 1929, Page 8

AUTOMATIC VENDOR

IS THE MACHINE A SHOP? Dominion Special Service. Dunedin, April 19. The question whether an automatic machine for the sale of photographic films was a shop was decided by an interesting judgment of the Court this morning. The defendants, Hugh aud G. K. Neill, were charged under the Shops and Offices Act with failing to close their shop. In giving his judgment, Mr. H. IV. Bundle, S.M., said the contention of the prosecution must be either, that as the defendant company was the occupier of a shop the machine was part of the shop, or the machine was a shop per se. He was of opinion that the first contention was manifestly unreasonable, for it would mean that a person who had a shop and also owned automatic machines, would, for the purpose of the Act, be in a worse position than a person who had only one or more automatic machines, but no shop in the usual sense of the term.

Secondly, in order to bring an automatic machine within the definition of a shop, he must find that it was a building or place where goods were kept exposed or offered for sale. Automatic machines had been in use for many years, and if it were intended that they should be treated as shops, or that special provisions should apply to them, it would have been a simple matter to have done so in express terms under the Shops and Offices Act. After careful consideration he was of the opinion that ‘occupier,’ as used in the interpretation clause, necessarily implied physical occupation. The information was dismissed.