ON LICENSED PREMISES

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXI, 12 November 1928, Page 6

ON LICENSED PREMISES

THREE MEN CONVICTED Charged with being on licensed premises (the Exchange Hotel) without lawul excuse on a Sunciay, Richard Cox, James Hagan. and Richard Mahoney, appeared before Mr T. E. Maunseli, S.M., at the Magistrate's Court this morning. The defendants who pleaded not guilty were represented by Mr E. J. Kemnitz. Senior Sergeant Quinn conducted the prosecution. Constable Austin said that he met the three accused just coming out of the I jack entrance of the hotel on the Sunday morning. They told him they had been on the premises about 10 minutes and that thev went there to see a man named Gray who was a friend of theirs, that they went along to his room and that ho "shouted them two rounds of drinks. The witness remembered Gray saying something about a "Sportsman." Air Kemnitz said the defence was,that the three defendants who are all working on the Majestic Theatre building with Gray went up to Gray's room in the Exchange at his invitation to see a copy of the "N.Z. Sportsman." Reginald Gray gave evidence along these lines and a similar story was told by Hagan and Slahoriey. Neither of these defendants could tell the Magistrate anything they read in "The Sportsman."'

The Magistrate said that if the defendants could have shown him that they were interested in any particular sport such as 'race meetings or cricket match, and that they went to the hotel to read about it then he would have been disposed to believe them. Apparently, however, they went there for no uostantia! reason. They were only in 'here about ten minutes during which hey had two rounds of drinks. He fined each defendant 5/-, with costs 10/^.