LICENSING ACT.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 116, 17 April 1939, Page 8

LICENSING ACT.

PENALTIES FOR BREACHES. SEQUEL TO FATALITY. Comment that the prosecution was the outcome of circumstances revealed following upon the double fatality which occurred in the Taonui Street accident was made by Senior-Sergeant Mclntyre in the Magistrate’s Court to-day, when Ernest Frederick do Tourrett, licensee of the Midland Hotel, was charged with selling liquor after hours on February 25, , and Norman Arnold Dalzell, a barman, was charged with supplying liquor after hours on the same date.

Air G. M. Crossley, who appeared for tlie licensee, said it would appear from the events which subsequently occurred, and the publicity given them, that there had been some relaxation on the part of the management of the hotel, but an examination of the circumstances would reveal that they were not so serious as would at first appear. The barman, who was no longer employed by the licensee, had definite instructions not to supply liquor to any persons other than guests. Unauthorised persons had gained admittance to the hotel through a back door which was occasionally left open for the convenience of guests. Since the occurrence it had been locked and chained, and would be permanently eloped. The circumstances had been magnified considerably because of the evidence at the inquest, when it was said there were a number of men in the bar. but inquiries made showed that nine of them were bona, fide guests, and it also appeared that the unauthorised persons there were friends of the barman. It was quite possible that the publicity given the matter and its serious results had contributed towards magnifying a possible breach by tlie licensee. Possibly, a little more rare might have been shown in locking the hack door, but this hotel, in common with others, was frequently inspected, and this was the first occasion during his occupancy of two years that the licensee had been before the Court. Tlie licensee was fined £5, with 13s costs, and the barman £3, with 21s costs.