A LICENSING QUESTION.

Evening Star, Issue 9878, 14 December 1895, Page 4

A LICENSING QUESTION.

At the Christchuroh Supreme Court yesterday, Mr Justice Denniston granted an, order direoting the issue of a writ of certiorari to the members of the Licensing Committee for the district of Inangahua to quash the decision of the Committee granting a license to David Hugh Alexander in respeot to the Albion Hotel, Bridge street, Reefton. The applicants for the order were Bernard ■ Rogers and John Ooghlan, hotelkeepers, of Boatmans. The affidavits showed that the Albion Hotel, Reefton, of which Alexander had been the licensee, was destroyed by fire, with the exception of two back rooms, on April 18,1895. At the annual meeting of the Inangahua Licensing Committee on 4th June Alexauder applied for a renewal of the license, but as the premises had not been rebuilt the application was adjourned. On September 24 the Committee, by the casting vote of the member in the chair (not the stipendiary magistrate), granted a renewal of the license. The premises had not been rebuilt, and it was not intended to rebuild them. No temporary premises had been erected on the site, and nO permit or temporary license bad been granted to Alexander. Alexander had applied to trausfer the license to one Burke, and to remove it to the premises of Bridget Mary Burke at Boatmans. The site of the hotel at Reefton had been sold by the mortgagee, D. S. Monceith, prior to September 24, to the agent of David Ziman. The remains of the building had been cleared away, and it was proposed to erect offices on the site. The portions of the hotel not destroyed bad never been occupied or used, and notice of the application had been affixed, not to the front door, but to portion of the front wall which had not been destroyed. Alexander's affidavit stated that the re-erection of the Albion Hotel had been hindered in consequence of a difference with the insurance companies, and that he had thereupon applied for a removal of the license to premises at Copleston or Boatmans. whioh the Committee considered suitable.