RAID ON HOTEL

Manawatu Times, Volume 63, Issue 48, 26 February 1938, Page 2

RAID ON HOTEL

Licensee and Barman Fined STORY TOLD IN COURT From Our Own Correspondent. WAIPUKURAU, Feb. 25. The story of a hotel raid, in which men on licensed premises after hours escaped by a private bar by a large window into the back yard, where they were intercepted by constables surrounding the building, was unfolded before Mr J. Miller, S.M., in the Waipukurau Magistrate’s Court this morning, when the licensee and barman of the Tavistock Hotel, and five other men, were charged under the Licensing Act. Cuthbert Low Crooks, licensee of the Tavistock Hotel, pleaded guilty to selling liquor after hours. Two further charges of opening the premises for the sale of liquor and exposing liquor for sale were withdrawn by the police. A fine of £1 with costs 10/- was imposed. James O’Halloran, barman, pleaded guilty to supplying liquor after hours, was fined £4 with costs 10/-. The men charged with being found on licensed premises after hours all pleaded guilty and were fined £ 1 10/- each with costs 10/-. Senior Sergeant G. Sivyer, of Hastings, who prosecuted, said that on January 29, at about 9.25 p.m. a party of police from Hastings raided the hotel, at the back of which there was a private bar where the barman was found with five other men. Some of these made their escape through a large window into the backyard, but constables stationed there intercepted them as they came out. “The licensee and barman were before the Court last year, and were both fined then,” said Sergeant Sivyer, “but on that occasion the offence had not been a serious one.” Generally speaking the hotel was a first-class one, well run, and the licensee was a good hotel-keeper. All the men were first offenders. For the defence, it was stated that the men found on the premises had been all more or less friends of the barman. They had been working late in town and had called in for a drink before going home.