LICENSING DECISION

Greymouth Evening Star, 9 September 1927, Page 5

LICENSING DECISION

USE OF SITTING ROOM. Reporting to the quarterly meeting of the Ohinemuri Licensing Committee on Monday afternoon in connection with the Kerepeehi Hotel, Kerepeehi, Constable Devereaux stated that an upstairs public sitting room had been converted into a private sitting room for the use of the manager in order to hold card parties after hours. The probable guests, it was alleged, would be people interested in horse racing and double betting, one being the leader of a “two-up school” before the police were stationed at Kerepeehi. Air. E. J. Clendon, for the licensee, Frank Rogers, characterised the last part of the report as an “absolute misstatement of facts.” There was no truth whatever in the unnecessary expression of opinion as to the character of the licensee’s intended guests, said counsel. The only point at issue was the use of an upstairs room as a private sitting room. The committee concurred with this view anti ordered the removal of the word “private” from the door of the upstairs sitting room, intimating that it was desirable in the public interest feu' hotels to be furnished with a public sitting room upstairs in addition to the commercial room usually found on the ground floor.