UNLAWFUL RAFFLE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21411, 8 February 1933, Page 13

UNLAWFUL RAFFLE

MOTOR-CAR AS TRIZE

NAPIER PROSECUTIONS CARNIVAL ORGANISERS FINED For conducting a lottery, in which the prize was a baby motor-car, Harry Clifton Nicholls, secretary of tho Builders' Queen Committee in the recent carnival celebrations at. Napier, was fined £lO and costs by Mr. A. M. Mowlem, S.M., in the Police Court.

Senior-Sergeant Pender said that no permission was obtained to raffle the car. The proceeds had gone to the builders' queen's funds. "This sort of thing must be stopped," he said. lie added that any person buying a ticket or taking any part in the raffle was also committing an offence.

Mr. Langley, for the defendant, said that the committee had existed for the purpose of adding interest to the Napier Carnival, and also for the purpose of raising money for the restoration of the town. The next object was to provide -two beds at the Napier Public Hospital for the needy, and the final object was to provide assistance for the unemployed boys and girls of the town. Not one of the officials in the organisation had received a penny from the campaign. The committee was under the impression that <% similar procedure hac'l been adopted by a Wellington organisation, and they had .considered that they could follow this course.

A similar charge was preferred against Louis Spiro,' secretary of the Unemployment Queen organisation, in respect of a lottery in which the prize was a steel engraving, valued at £5. He was fined £5 and costs.

In imposing the fines, the magistrate said: "There is no doubt that this sort of thing must stop. The earthquake disaster brought forth quite a crop cf undesirable elements, and Napier was subjected to raids by people who had no conscience whatever and got away with everything possible. These cases appear to have been the acts of thoughtless men, but they have badly exceeded the law."