CLOSING SHOPS

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7867, 1 August 1911, Page 1

CLOSING SHOPS

THE HALF-HOUR’S GRACE JUDGMENT IN IMPORTANT TEST CASE. Ilis Worship Mr W. G. Riddell, S.M., delivered his reserved judgment in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday in the case in which the Labour Department pro- | ceedod against Horace J. Archer, draper, of Cuba street, for having employed a shop assistant after 9 o'clock on one night during a week. Tho facts were admitted, and tho case was brought merely as a test as to the interpretation t > be placed on the statute. His Worship, after reviewing the law at some length, said: “Under tho Act of 1891 it would appear that the shopkeepers could transact new business in the. half hour allowed after the hour of closing, but tho alteration in language in the later Acts seems to show that the half hour allowed was intended to bo used in completing business thou begun—serving customers who had come, into the shop prior to closing time or for doing other necessary work in connection, with tho goods then purchased or generally performed in every shop at or immediately after the hour of closing. The | provision was made to ensure tho con- ! venient working of tho conditions imposed by tho Act without inflicting undue hardship upon either shopkeeper, shop,assistant ortho public. Under tho conditions proscribed by subsection b and subsection 3. if there woro no customers in tho shop at the hour of closing and a shop assistant was employed in it for not more than half an hour at work connected with tlie business of the shop no. offence would bo committed, but if, while engaged in such work a customer entered after tho hour of closing and was served, then 1 think tho shop assistant would be employed contrary to the Act and his act would not come within the proviso contained in. subsection 3, I do not think the position is altered if, while attending to customers who have entered the shop before the hour of closing a fresh customer enters after the hour of closing and is served by a shop assistant. The language used in subsection 3 is very wide, but I doubt if, it covers the case of a sale after tho hour, later than which, by subsection b, shop assistants must not bo employed. Defendant was convicted and fined Ls, and for the purposes of appeal costs were fixed at .210.

Mr if. H. Ostler appeared for plaintiffs, and Mr T. Weston for defendant. A SECOND CASE. .

Judgment was also given in the case against Kobort Sinclair/ grocer, who was proceeded against for naving employed a carter for more than nine hours on more than one day during the week ending June 2-ith. It nas admitted that the employee had worked 9J hours on the Monday and II hours on the Saturday of the one week.

Section G of the Shops and Offices Act, said his Worship, prescribed that a shop assistant should not be employed in or about tho shop or its business—(a) for reoro than 52 hours excluding meal times iu any one week; nor (b) for more than 9 hours excluding meal times ou any one day, except ou one day iu each week, when tho employment may be for II hours excluding meal times. Irrespective of tho fact that the number of hours worked by the. assistant were less than 53 for the week ending Juno 24th, liis AA'orship did not, think that subsection 3 of section 3 (relating to the half hour’s grace) helped tho defendant. He was not charged with employing an assistant for more than 52 hours in one ■week or with employing an assistant after 6 or 9 o’clock ou one of the days in tho week ending Juno 24th. Each of those Acts was, by different parts of tho statute, madiv a separate offence, as was also tho Act with which defendant was etharged. It was also urged that if an offence had been committed the. information should be dismissed as trivial inasmuch as a holiday occurred in that particular week, and defendant paid his shop assistants ,C2 os instead of 355, the award rale. It had been pointed out, however', that defendant might have obtained a permit by applying to the department, but ho did not choose to do so, and while defendant.was to he commended for paying his employees higher wages than those provided by the award yet that was a voluntary act on his part. Defendant was convicted and fined Is. Air E. A. Le Cron appeared for tho department, and Air T. Weston for the defendant.