HORSE ON GRASS PLOT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21359, 7 December 1932, Page 14

HORSE ON GRASS PLOT

WOMAN RIDER PROSECUTED CITY BY-LAW QUESTIONED [BV TELEGRAPH—PRESS ASSOCIATION'] PALM ERST ON NORTH, Tuesday Reserved judgment of interest to local authorities was given by Mr. J. L. Stout, S.M., in a test case in which the validity of a by-law was questioned. The case was one in which Mrs. Doris Martin, a resident of Palmerston North, was charged with riding a horse upon a prepared and cultivated grass plot situated in Church Street, cor%rnry to the City Council bylaw.

In recent years the City Council has constructed grass plots between footways and the edging of bitumen on the. roadway. Defendant admitted the offence of riding the horse, but raised as an excuse that she could not ride the horse with' safety on the bituminised surface. Evidence was called to suggest that the laying out of such strips was an unreasonable interference with public rights. The magistrate held that the evidence was unconvincing. Jf the council had power to lay out such grass plots there was 110 doubt it could pass .a by-law to protect them. Such power existed under the Municipal Corporations Act, section 354, subsections 6 and 18, also section 172, subsections F and K.

"If fhq council can enclose and plant, such powers should cover the lesser right to lay without enclosing," said the magistrate. In his opinion the by-law was not unreasonable. "Defendant," he said, "has shown very poor citizenship in deliberately damaging cultivated grass plots."

Defendant was fined £2, and the amount was increased to permit of an .appeal on a point of law.