LIQUOR AFTER HOURS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19607, 8 April 1927, Page 13

LIQUOR AFTER HOURS.

OFFENCE BY A BARMAN. LICENSEE NOT RESPONSIBLE. [BY TELEGRAPH. —OWN CORRESPONDENT.] WELLINGTON. Thursday. If a barman, who has never been requested- or permitted to sell liquor to boarders or anybody else after hours, does so without the authority of his employer, then the employer is not liable for the action of his servant. This was the opinion expressed by Mr. E. Page, S.M., to-day, when he gave reserved judgment in favour of a licensee who was charged with selling liquor after hours and with having opened his premises for the sale of liquor. The barman had already been convicted for supplying liquor alter hours and the question for decision was whether the licensee was also liable to be convicted. On the evening of the alleged offences both the licensee and the barman went into the bar to take stock. Subsequently the licensee went to the office to write up the stock sheets, leaving the barman to straighten up the bar. While he was thus engaged three men—one of them a boarder —came into the bar. The barman supplied all three with liquor. On no occasion, however, had he been requested or permitted to Supply any liquor to boarders or others after his regular hours, which were from 9 a.m. to 6.30 p.m. and save on this occasion he had never supplied any. Both charges against the licensee were dismissed-