MACHINE NOT A SHOP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20235, 20 April 1929, Page 16

MACHINE NOT A SHOP.

AUTOMATIC SELLING PLANT.

PROSECUTION FOR NOT CLOSING.

MAGISTRATE DISMISSES CHARGE. [I?Y TELEGRAPH. —OWN CORRESPONDENT. ] DUNEDIN, Friday. The question whether an automatic machine for the sale of photographic films was a shop was decided by an interesting judgment given in the Magistrate's Court this morning. The defendant company, ITugh and G. K. Neil I, was charged under the Shops and Offices Act with failing to close their shop in that such an automatic machine was operated.

In giving his decision tho Magistrate, Mr. H. W. Bundle, said the contention of the prosecution must l>o either that as the defendant company was the occupier of a shop tho machine was part of tho shop, or the machine was a shop per se. He was of opinion that the first contention was manifestly unreasonable, for it would mean that a person who had a shop and also owned an automatic machine would, for tho purpose of tho act, bo in a worse position than a porson who had only one or more automatic machines but no shop in tho irsual sense of the term.

In order to bring an automatic machine within the definition of a shop ho must find that it was a building or place where goods were kept exposed or offered for sale. Automatic machines had been in use for many years, and if it were intended that they should be treated as shops, or that special provisions should apply to them, it would have been a simple matter to have done so in express terms under the Shops and Offices Act. After careful consideration he was of the opinion that the term " occupier," as used in the interpretation clause, necessarily implied physical occupation. The information was dismissed.