GAMBLING IN HOTEL

Evening Star, Issue 16852, 30 September 1918, Page 4

GAMBLING IN HOTEL

THEATRICALS AT POKER,

LICENSEE PINED

In the Police Court this morning Chas. Henry Taylor, licensee of the Empire Hotel, was charged with permitting gambling to take place on the premises. Mr Hanlon appeared for defendant, who pleaded guilty.

Sub-inspector Mathieson said that defendant had been licensee of the hotel for three months. On the 22nd of September (a Sunday), at 3.45 p.m., Sergeant Thomson, accompanied by two constables in plain clothes and two in uniform, wont to the Empire Hotel. They managed to get upstairs unobserved, and listening for some minutes at the door of a room they heard talk which indicated that a game of poker was in progress. Defendant's voice was heard, and from the conversation the police gathered that he was taking part In the game. Upon entering the room the police found si>: persons, including the licensee, at a table. Five of them were vaudeville artists, and these iivo were playing the game, with sums of money in front of them. The licensee was apparently not playing. H.e frankly admitted that tho boarders had been playing a game, and that he knew he had done wrong in permitting it. On a former occasion, 10 days earlier, the police had entered the hotel about midnight, and although they found nothing in the way of gambling they found persons on the premises who had no right to be there. The room used was a big room used for a bedroom, and from its position was peculiarly suited for gambling in, as there were two doors leading from it into a yard where, there was a corrugated iron fence, with a ladder against it, over which there was access to a- vacant lot. If a raid took place people could thus get quickly away. During the three months the defendant had been licenseo his conduct had not been satisfactory. He was at an earlier date licensee of Tattersalls, and had been convicted twice for _nffences for which his employees were responsible. Mr Hanlon said the sub-inspector had said all he could say, and a little bit mora than ho should have said. The fact was that the game was being played by some boarders in tho house "in company with some friends who were visiting them. Defendant was not playing—the police themselves on entry found that this was so. There were no cards or money in front of him. Tho correct facts were that this room was a private bed-sifting room engaged by a boarder for himself, his wife, and their child. It was suggested that the room was suitable for gambling, because people could get away through a, fence in which there had been made an aperture. This aperture, however, had been made by Powley's people to enable the easy passage of bottles- through ShiePs section. The polite omitted to say that Shiel's section bad a- high fence, and that tho gate was always locked at night, so that to spo-ik of this- as a means cf exit was an extravagant inference. The occupant of the room, a, vaudeville artist, bid invited some friends to his room, and these, together with- other members of the company, were playing the game when Taylor came in. He went into the, room bwavse the boarder in- question, wlio was leaving next day, had asked for his bill. When Taylor got there ha found cards in progress, and .remonstrated with them, telling' them that they must stop. They wanted, however, to finish up with wha-t (counsel understood) was known, as a '' jack pot," and Taylor sat down and watched them. Counsel submitted that tho Court would hardly believe that if gambling was going on with the connivnWso of the licensee, he would have left his frontdoor open, and the very door of the gambling room open, so that the police could walk straight vp to the table. As to tho reference to people being- found on the premise? before, counsel said they Wrere guests of a boarder, and had every right there. The Magistrate (Mr Bartholomew, S.M.) said that the facts did not suggest that, the true inference was that the defendant deliberately catered for gambling on tho premises. If there had been anything in. tho way of a- gambling school difficulties would have been put in the way of the police entry. The manifest explanation was that when the licensee fcun. tho jrame in progress he failed to assert himself and prohibit the game. Defendant would be fined £f> and costs.