HOTEL BAR RAID

Evening Star, Issue 21633, 31 January 1934, Page 9

HOTEL BAR RAID

BREACH OF GAMING ACT THREE MEN FINED Fines in different sums were imposed by Mr K. Bartholomew, S.M., in the Police Court this morning on the three men who as a result of a police raid on the public bar of an hotel on Saturday appeared in court charged with breaches of the Gaming Act. A. Gourley was charged with using the public bar of the Carlton Hotel as a common gaming house, while James Ernest Gillan and James Kennedy were charged with assisting him. Mr C. J. L. White appeared for the defendant.

Detective-sergeant Doyle said that Gourley liad been a barman at the Carlton Hotel for two years, and had been head barman for the last three months. Gillan was an assistant barman, and Kennedy was a barman and cellarman. As a result of complaints from some of the public that betting was being carried on there in the public bar a constable paid several visits to the bar, and on January 23 lie saw Gourley laying doubles with customers on the Wellington Meeting, and between January 23 and 26 he made several bets with Gourley, and saw others betting with him, and also with Gillan and another barman not before the court. Gourley and Gillan each had a doubles chart which they handed to customers to select their fancies, the money received as bets being placed under the bar counter. On Saturday last a party of detectives in possession of a warrant raided the bar, and in a box under the counter they found , thirteen envelopes containing numerous betting slips covering a period of one month and relating to betting and race meetings all over New Zealand. The amount of money recorded was £219 10s 6d. The largest sum recorded was £2 and the average was ss. There were forty-nine racing day cards at meetings all over New Zealand, showing the placed horses and the (.ends; also a copy of the Bookmakers’ Association’s rules and limits. Alphabetical books were used to record the names of clients and horses taken in doubles, showing that 458 doubles were laid in a month. Moreover, there were packets containing dividend money which was to be paid to persons who had invested. Gourley, continued Mr Doyle, said he had been at the game only three months, and that the others assisted him. He claimed all the betting paraphernalia as his property, and said “ A man is pushed into it by the customers.” Kennedy, who was engaged mostly in the cellar, said he had only just gone into the bar to relieve, and another barman gave him the. stuff to carry on with in his absence. He was referring to a doubles chart found on him indicating that forty-one oneshilling doubles had been laid that day on the Forbury Trots. He was also in possession of a book relating to doubles betting. He said he had laid only two doubles.. Gillan was a regular barman, and was in possession of a pocket book relating to the laying of doubles at Wellington, Invercargill, and Dunedin. The records showed sixty-four doubles at these meetings. Gillan said he was assisting Gourley. Mr Doyle concluded by saying that betting had been carried out on a fairly large scale for some years. He was not referring particularly to Kennedy, however, whose explanation he quite believed to be true. Mr White, for the defendants, said that it had not been the practice of the police in Dunedin to prefer charges of using a bar as a common gaming house, and, although in some instances such charges had been laid, they had invariably been withdrawn and lesser charges, such as laying totalisator odds, substituted. However, in this case Hie police insisted on proceeding with the charges in their present form.

According to a Wellington case of Davis by Nutnll, it had been laid down by the Supreme Court that, if a barman was in exclusive control of an hotel bar and betting material was found on him there, and other evidence of gaming, he could be convicted of using the bar as a common gaining house. This decision left the defendants no option but to plead guilty to the charges as preferred. Gourley had been a barman at the Carlton Hotel for two years. He was the principal party, and had assumed that responsibility right from the moment of the raid. He had done what he could to convince the police of this so as to relieve the other defendants of responsibility an the matter. Just before the raid there had been some dispute with a customer over a bet, and Gourley had got out the whole of his betting transactions, which proved conclusively that the evidence of betting found by the police was the entire quantity done in the period. At first sight the quantity of betting seemed large, £2lO, but it required careful analysis. It would be found that the period extended from Boxing Day to last Saturday, and was the chief betting month ot the year, including two Wingatui days of racing, two at Forbury, the Auckland carnival, the Wellington races, and many other smaller meetings. Mr White said he was informed that during the period there had been fifty-seven days of_ racing. The average amount of betting was therefore only £3 17s per day of racing, or, on further analysis, only a few shillings per race.' The betting was practically all small silver betting—only a very few bets being over about 10s. Although it amounted to no legal justification, there was a considerable amount of truth in Gourley’s statement to the police regarding the temptation to which barmen were subjected by customers persistently wanting to make bets. In this case Gourley had from the start acknowledged his guilt and had consistently done so since—the adjournment being not in any way to avoid facing the issue, but merely to enable him (counsel) to consider the gaming-house charge. Gourley was thirty-four years of age, with two young children. The matter was a serious one to him, as he was suspended from the Carlton and would no doubt lose his position. He, like the other defendants, had never before been before a court of justice. Gillan was a single man. He was a a cellarman, and had been relieving in the bar for six weeks. When engaged at his ordinary work he had no opportunity of betting. Only four Is bets had been found on him in respect of Saturday’s races. Kennedy was single and twenty-eight years of age. He had been out of work for three years, but had been employed as a porter at the Carlton since October. He was a poor man and had practically nothing to do with the betting. He had been in the bar a matter of minutes only. Although these men obviously must have known the risk they were running, the convictions were all serious matters to the accused. They were all men on working men’s wages, and the profit which could be made out of silver betting must be small. The penalty would, therefore, be a great punishment to them-—much greater than in the case of a bookmaker. In view of their previous good character, counsel asked that the magistrate extend such leniency as he could to the defendants under the circumstances. His Worship said it was a serious matter that this sort of thing should have been going on in an hotel bar. The facts showed that betting to a considerable extent had been carried on over one month. If it had not been checked by the police, it would no doubt have increased. Gourley, clearly the main offender, would be fined £SO, and Gillan would be fined £ls. Kennedy’s was evidently an isolated case. He would be fined £5.