LICENSING CASE

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 184, 2 May 1929, Page 7

LICENSING CASE

CHARGES AGAINST PUBLICAN FAIL A reserved judgment of considerable interest to publicans was delivered by Mr. E. Page, S.M., in the Magistrates Court yesterday in the case in which three informations were brought by the police under the Licensing Act against Charles England Faulkner, licensee of the Albert Hotel. “At 9.20 on the evening of February 15 last,” said Mr. Page in delivering judgment, “police officers entered the premises of the Albert Hotel. They found the bar lighted up, and a barman was behind the bar and some glasses of liquor stood on the counter. _ Some men were observed hurriedly leaving the bar The barman has been convicted of supplying liquor to these men after hours, and there are now three charges standing against the licensee of selling.liquor, exposing liquor for sale, and opening the premises for the sale of liquor after hours. The evidence shows that at the date in question the old building of this hotel was in course of demolition to give place to a new structure. . There was at the time no accommodation for boarders or staff, and no one but. the licensee and his wife were then living there. The bar itself was in process of demolition, and was about to be closed up on the following day. The barman, who did not then nor had at any time lived at the hotel, had been directed to come back to the premises on this evening to clean up the bar, to take stock, and to commence the removal of stock from this room into the new premises. It was while he was on this duty that the unlawful sale was made. The licensee and his wife were not at the time on the premises.” Continuing, Mr. Page said the question was whether on the facts disclosed the barman was expressly or impliedly authorised by the licensee to make the unlawful sale, or to expose ” uor, or to open the premises for the sale of liquor, so as to make the licensee personally responsible. “I think,” went on Mr. Page, “the case is governed by the decision in the ease of Kenning v. Forster, 1919, G.L.R. 69. There a barman, whose duty, was to serve in the bar between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m., used to elea? out the bar before 9 o’clock each morning. On one occasion, while he was so doing at 7 a.m. he sold liquor to a man who called at the bar. It was held that the licensee was not liable to be convicted for the sale by the barman. In the present case it seems to me that the barman was in the bar for the purpose of cleaning it and overhauling the liquor, and not for the sale of liquor, and that he was not at the time the licensee’s agent for the sale of liquor. The charges against the licensee must therefore be dismissed." At the hearing Mr. W. Perry appeared for the licensee..