MAGISTRATE’S COURT

Greymouth Evening Star, 15 March 1937, Page 2

MAGISTRATE’S COURT

TO-DAY’S GREYMOUTH CASES. Mr. Raymond Ferner, S.M., presided at to-day’s sitting of the Magistrate s Court at Greymouth. Senioi-Seigeant E l . Quayle represented the police. Five first offenders, found on licensed premises after hours, were each fined 5/- with 10/- costs. Five second offenders were each fined 10/-, with 10/- costs. The licensee of the Golden Eagle Hotel, James Steel, was charged with opening the premises for the sale of liquor after hours on February 22, exposing liquor for sale, and selling liquor. Mr. J. W. Hannan, who appeared for defendant, entered a plea of guilty to the charge of “selling,” and the- other two charges were withdrawn by the police. The Senior-Sergeant said that he visited the hotel at 9.15 p.m., and found the licensee in the bar, and five men in the adjoining parlour. On the slide there were two glasses containing liquor, and a two-shilling piece. When asked for an explanation, the licensee said that, the men worked on the wharf and had come in for crib. The glasses, he said, belonged to himself and his nephew, while the two shilling piece was his. He showed witness a, plate of sandwiches, which he said was for the men’s crib. The licensee was convicted for a similar offence on May 13, 1935, and was fined £3.

Mr. Hannan said that defendant’s last conviction was practically two years ago, and the Senior-Sergeant would agree with him that the hotel was well conducted. It was an under, r load thing in Greymouth that the men who worked on the wharf were permitted 1 to enter hotels during the halfhour allowed for crib, provided that they were not supplied with liquor. Defendant was convicted of “selling,” and fined £3, with 10/- costs. Ipor riding a motor-cycle in Mackay Street, after dark on March 5, without displaying the prescribed lights, Cyril James Swinson Rendel was fined 10/-, with 10/- costs.