PURCHASE OF LIQUOR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20365, 20 September 1929, Page 16

PURCHASE OF LIQUOR.

COURT DISMISSES CASE.

AN IMPORTANT JUDGMENT.

[BY TELEGRAPH. —PRESS ASSOCIATION, f LEVIN. Thursday.

An important judgment affecting the sale and delivery of liquor was given by Mr. J. L. Stout. S.M., in tho Magistrate's Court to-day. Tho case was one in which Richard Watts, secretary of a football club, and Evan Jones, licensee of the Levin Hotel, were charged, tho former with being on liconsed premises after hours, and the lattor with selling liquor and keeping his premises open for sale during prohibited hours. It was stated that Watts purchased and paid for a jar of beer in tho afternoon, and the barman placed the jar in a cupboard. Watts forgot to call for tho beer until the evening, when he was found by a constable leaving tho hotel with the iar under his arm, and on his way to a football smoke concert.

The magistrate found that tho Court was bound by the English decision in tho case of Bristow v. Piper (1915), and that the salo was completed by the payment and af propriation of goods during legitimate hours. Tho informations therefore were dismissed.

"It is true," said the magistrate, "that this decision opens a very wide door to ovade tbe provisions of the Licensing Act. but that is a matter for the Legislature, which can close the door by decreeing that a contract is incomplete until the purchaser takes actual 1 delivery of the liquor."