IMPORTANT HOTEL CASE.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLII, Issue 216, 11 September 1908, Page 7

IMPORTANT HOTEL CASE.

RIGHTS OF LODGERS

.Mr R. W. Dyer, S.M., delivered judgment'at Auckland a few days ago in the case in which Charles Molloy, licensee of the Bricklayers' Arms Hotel, was'charged with permitting lrunkenness, under Section 146 of tie Licensing Act, 1881. The facts, which were admitted, were briefly that a man had gone to the hotel sober, and engaged a bed from Saturday, August 1, to the following Wednesday. On the Sunday morning he had a good deal of liquor outside, and he returned to the hotel the worse for it, and was found m this condition in the hotel by Sergeant Hansen. There were, said the Magistrate, apparently no authorities directly in point, but in the case Faber v. Dwyer (3, Gazette, L.R., 471), in which defendant was charged with permitting -drunkenness, it was held that if a person came drunk upon licensed premises the licensee committed no offence by allowing him to remain there, provided that he was not served, with liquor. The person in question, however, was not a lodger, but the Judge had remarked: "Can it be supposed that it was the intention of the -Legislature in such a case that it should be incumbent on the innkeeper to turn his lodger into the street at a late hour, at the peril of losing his license ? Iv my opinion, it is.impossible to place such a construction upon the statute. 'Mr Justice Williams had dissented from this view in th© case, Mcßobie v. Bbwden (7, Gazette, L.8., 118), and said in the course of his judgiment: "I think that for a licensed [ person to allow a drunken person to < remain, is to permit drunkenness. ._. The case of a lodger coming home is on a different footing. He has a right, by contract, to be on the premises. So, ! also, if a drunken man comes in seekiing shelter." The Magistrate went lon to refer to English cases, and said I that as far as he could see there was ,no corresponding section in the New ; Zealand statute to Section 4 of the Imperial Act of 1902, putting the onus of proof on the licensee when he was

'charged with permitting drunkenness. "In the present case,, said Mr Dyer, "the man came to the hotel on Saturday, perfectly, sober. He slept and had meals in the hotel, and when ho came in on Sunday, in a state of intoxication, he Avas in every sense ck the word a lodger. The hotel was this man's house for the time being. He had entered into a contract with the licensee for his board and lodging, and it seems to me that by virtue of that contract, although in a state of intoxication, he had a right to be on the premises. The information is dismissed." ______