MINE HOST

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 80, 15 October 1928, Page 16

MINE HOST

ticiiKSiNCJCharge dismissed (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) AUCKLAND, 12th October. Whether a licensee who invites friends to his hotel and entertains them after hours is guilty of an offence or not was a question threshed out at the Magistrate's Court yesterday. A. N. Pearce aud.-E. Porter, who did not appear, were charged witli being found on licensed premises after hours, and AY. E. Grant, licensee of the Queen's Ferry Hotel, pleaded not guilty to aiding and abetting. . The facts of the case, which were agreed oil"by both sides, were that Pearce and Porter had been playing billiards opposite the hotel with Grant, who had asked them across to "have a nightcap" in his private sitting-room, and out of bis own decanter. Grant had given his guests a couple of drinks, and they had been accosted by a constable when leaving a few minutes after midnight. The sub-inspector admitted thero was no" suggestion of the two men paying for drinks. Mr. Hunt, S.M.: "Where is the offence then?" Mr. M'Carthy: "They went to the hotel for the purpose of procuring liquor." Mr. Hunt: "If I convict it will mean that the licensee can never entertain his friends." Mr. M'Veagh, who described his client as having been nineteen years in the hotel business without getting into trouble, cited authorities to provo there was. no case to answer. Counsel considered it a fine distinction that a licensee, who asked a friend to have a arink should be.guilty of an offence, though a_ licenseo who had friends to see.him and produced liquor in the course of the. evening should be guiltless. "In this instance the licensee should be in the samo position as any other householder" concluded counsel. The Magistrate considered that a bona fide invitation had been given. and accepted, and so dismissed the information. He offered to state a case for appeal, but the sub-inspector said he did not think it would be necessary.