OFFICIAL DELAY

Grey River Argus, 30 May 1938, Page 2

OFFICIAL DELAY

Counsel’s Complaint

"CLIENT MADE SCAPEGOAT.”

TE AROHA. May 26.

The necessity for licenses to await the official approval of their appointees before leaving the hotel for a period of more than 14 days was argued in a case brought by the police against Thomas M. Curran (Mr N. S. Johnson and Mr A. McVeagh), licensee of the Palace Hotel, Te Aroha, before Mr W. H. Freeman, S.M., in the Te Aroha Police Court. Constable Kinton stated that the defendant, before leaving for a holiday in Australia, applied on March 23 for approval of his relieving manager. Mr J. Carson. Considering that his nominee would be acceptable to the Tauranga Licensing Committee, he left, for Australia, but when the authority met some time later his application was rejected. _ This put the relieving manager in the position of having sold liquor without a licence, and made the licensee liable under the Act to the loss of his licence. Constable Hinton admitted that the defendant had acted throughout in good faith. Mr N. S. Johnson, of Hamilton, for the defendant, claimed that his client had been made a scapeboat by the police merely for the purpose of giving the position publicity. The application, he- said, had been made in plenty of time and the authorities, deliberately, or otherwise, had not given any answer for 24 days, and then posted it on the eve of Easter,, thus incurring a further four days’ delay. Now they brought a prosecution against the defendant for neglect when the neglect was really their own. He claimed that the defendant had done all in his power to comply with the law before leaving. The Magistrate dismissed the case.