UNREASONABLE BY-LAW

Greymouth Evening Star, 16 May 1939, Page 3

UNREASONABLE BY-LAW

LIQUOR-IN DANCE HALL

[PEK PRESS ASSOCIATION.]

DUNEDIN, May 15

A pronouncement holding that the Dunedin City Corporation by-law prohibits the possession of or consumption of liquor in any building licensed as a public hull and used for entertainments of which dancing forms a. part is unreasonable, is embodied in a reserved decision of the Chief Justice (Sir Michael Myers) in the appeal case, Frederick Page v. William John Harvey. This case was an appeal against a conviction in the lower Court of Page, who, as licensee of the Peter Pan Cabaret, was prosecuted and fined under by-law 23 for permitting to be brought into a public hall liquor for use at or during a function of which dancing formed a part, without permission in writing from the town clerk.

After dealing with the provisions of the Municipal Corporations Act. 1920, which was in force when the by-law was made, the Chief Justice said: ‘Tn conclusion I cannot think (hat such .a by-law can possibly be held to be anything but unreasonable. More than that, If 1 am right in m.v view of what is meant by a ‘function of which dancing forms a. part,’ and as to the consequences generally that would follow from the by-law upon its true construction, it. would seem to me that the by-law is not only not warrentad by the statute; but is indeed repugnant to its provisions, and to general law. If lam not right, in my interpretation of the words a ■function of which dancing forms q part,’ then the alternative, I think, is that the meaning is vague and uncertain, and if a by-law is not certain in its terms it would be invalid on that ground.

“The conviction in my view is wrong, and must be set aside. The appeal is ’allowed, and the conviction is quashed accordingly.”