CONDITIONAL LICENSES.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 79, 5 April 1910, Page 8

CONDITIONAL LICENSES.

RACING CLUB'S BOOTHS AND LICENSING COMMITTEE. COMMITTEEMEN FEEL STRONULY\ In connection with the i.-suing oi a conditional license to sell alcoholic liquor at the Wellington Racing Clubs Autumn Meeting, ccminencing to-morrow, some pronounced difference of opinion exists among members of the Hutt Licensing Committee, in whose district the Trentham Racecourse is. From information supplied to a Post representative it appears that yesterday application was made to t*«o of the members, Messrs. Win. Ingiis and J. Cotton, for the customary license, but they refused to sign the permit. Mr. Harry Byder, another member who was out of town for the time being, wrote also stating his refusal. The dub then approached the two remaining members who, with the chairman (Mr. Haselden, S.M.), granted the necessary permission. Messrs. Ingiis, Cotton, and Ryder feel very strongly on the matter, their contention being that the license should only be granted to a license-bolder within the Hutt district. The purchaser of the bar privilege at the meeting is a Wellington hotelkeeper (Mr. Mace, of the Central Hotel), and the objectors hold that the issuing of a permit to him, even if only temporary, i* really creating a new and additional license in tbe Hutt district. "We contend," remarked one member, '" that we .would have no control over a man outside our district in case he sold bad liquor or made some other infringement. Anyhow all the members of the committee in a. manifesto which appeared at the time of th& ejection in the local paper, pledged themselves that they would not grant any more licenses in the district. We pledged ourselves to .the No-License party in a like manner, so that the action of granting this permit to an onteide licensee amounts to a breach of faith." Apart from the moral aspect of the question, the three members referred to objected on tbe grounds tha-t the granting of a permit would be illegal. "We do not," as one of their number pat it, "want to drop in for a fine of £50 each, and that is what the whole thing amounts to." In questioning the legality of the procedure, they affirmed that they were simply abiding by the decision of Mr. Fitzhcrhert, S.M., who in recently adjudicating upon a case in Taranaki inflicted a fine of £5 on a, hotelkeeper, who had held a conditional license for a booth in a district in which he did not hold a license. The whole matter with some other details will be brought up at the meeting of the Hutt Licensing Bench in June next. NO-LICENSE PARTTS ATTITUDE. The position has excited considerable interest in Petone, and in conversation with a Post reporter a prominent NoLicense advocate expressed approval "not only of the action of the three objectors but of tbe logic of the thing." He fully bore out their contention, and expressed the opinion that they had really no alternative bat to act as they did, in face' of the warnings which, he said, had been given in the past. ■ The attitude adopted by another wellknown member of the No-License League was to the effect that apart from the alleged illegality of the matter, and the whole principle of issuing' such licenses, he failed to see how it could make any difference whether a^ Wellington or a Hutt Valley hotelkeeper held the permit, seeing that in any case an extra license was created for the time being.