LIQUOR SOLD BY PORTER

Hawera Star, Volume LIII, 9 November 1933, Page 6

LIQUOR SOLD BY PORTER

AFTER HOURS IN HOTEL. *

LICENSEE ACQUITTED.

(By Teleffrapb —Presa association.)

WELLINGTON, Nov. 7. Samuel Dunn, licensee of the Carlton Hotel, was to-day charged with selling liquor after hours, but the charge was dismissed, a former night porter. Robert Wilson, admitting selling the liquor without a .license and stating that the liquor was has own property He was lined £lO -on this count, and the charge against him of selling after hours was withdrawn. . The story of the police was that a constable saw Wilson come out one night with ti. sugar bag, which he placed in a waiting motor-car in which were three men. The- constable toe 1 possession of the hag, which contained nine bottle of beer. The police called at the hotel and were admitted bv Wilson, who was the only person oil dutv. They found stacked on the office shelf twelve bottles of ale, a bottle of port wine, two bottles- of brandy, and some whisky, and near it £2 10s in notes and silver. Wilson said the liquor and money were his own property, and that during the night hours on which, he was on duty he was- illicitly selling. ‘-it unknown to the licensee. He said lTc bought it throughout the day and stocked it in the cellar. . • When interviewed next day Dunn said he had learned of the events from Wilson and had discharged him. . In reviewing the facts the magistrate said that the onus was on the prosecution to prove that the liquor was Dunn’s. In order to convict Dunn he would have to find affirmatively that the evidence given by the licensee and the porter was untrue. While the circumstances of the sale and the finding of the liquor find money in the office were consistent with the view that the liquor was the property of the licensee, he did not think they were sufficiently unemiivocal to establish affirmatively that the evidence was untrue and that the liquor was the property of the licensee and not of the night porter.