LICENSING LAW.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 31 July 1928, Page 5

LICENSING LAW.

LIQUOR AFTER HOURS. **

AN AUCKLAND CASE

(By Telegraph—liras Association,,

AUCKLAND, July 30. Holding that if the convenience of the guests at a hotel required the door to be kept open after the statutory hour the onus was east upon licensees to take reasonable precautions to prerent unauthorised persons’ from using the door for the purpose of entering the hotel. Air. J. H. Luxford, S.M., today convicted and fined C. H. Triggs, licensee of the City Hotel, £2 and costs on a charge of keeping his premises open for the sale of liquor after hours. The informations laid against Triggs alleging the selling of liquor or the exposing of liquor for sale were dismissed.

When the police visited the premises of the defendant they found the public entrance closed, but the private entrance open, and in the “night bar” upstairs were 13 men. The licensee was preparing drinks. The -licensee said ‘the men in the room were boarders, but later it was found that three were neither hoarders nor bona fide guests. None of these three was in possession of drink.

“I am forced to draw the inference that these men ever© in the night bar for the purpose of procuring liquor, and would have succeeded if the police officers had not entered the room,” said the Magistrate. “Although I have held as a fact that the defendant, kept his premises open primarily tor the convenience of liis lodgers, I am unable to hold that he took any steq>s to see that that purpose only was served. This omission, in my opinion, justifies me in holding that the premises were kept oj>en in the sense that people could get in from the outside lor the jnirpo.se of obtaining intoxicating liquor.’’