MODEL HOTELS

Grey River Argus, 12 October 1944, Page 6

MODEL HOTELS

Fines at Invercargill FOR SUPPLYING TIPSY CUSTOMER. P.A. INVERCARGILL, October 11. At the Magistrate’s Court to-day, the manager of one of the Trust hotels was charged with selling liquor to an intoxicated person, and a barman was charged with supplying liquor to the same. Both of the cases created a good deal of public interest. . . „ “The Invercargill Licensing irust is operating these hotels under an Act the intention of which is to establish model hotels,” Mr. Abernethy, S.M., said, “and I have no doubt the' Trust is at some pains to attain the object set out by the Act. That means that the managers of the hotels first, and the barmen after them, have to be more than, ordinarily careful about the sale of liquor. As counsel properly points out, there is not the same incentive for barmen under the Trust to sell liquor to men. who should not have it, as there is to the licensees, in the ordinary way, who want to make more than they should out of the failings of the drinkers. There may not be the same incentive, but, as far as -this Court is concerned, I shall use that Section, when it is brought before me, to inflict heavy penalties, not light ones, on barmen who fail to measure up to their obligations in this manner. If a barman serves a man who should not be having liquor, there is no question that the Court can, should, and will, impose a heavy penalty.” The Magistrate added that ne though the barman, who admitted he had seen the man coming into the bar, should have had sufficient observation to make up his mind that the man was in such a state that he should not have been served. The Act aimed at model hotels, and they could not have model hotels if this sort of thing went on. The barmen owed this duty to the Trust. They had a right to exercise their judgment and power. If they did that, they would not have these cases of drunkenness, such as they had had in Court in the last few weeks.

. > Millar, the manager, was fined £6 with costs 10s, and Ryan, the barman, £3 with costs 10s.