PUBLIC OR PRIVATE BAR?

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8611, 23 December 1913, Page 8

PUBLIC OR PRIVATE BAR?

DECISION IN A. NAPIER CASE. Press Association. NAPIER, December 22. An interesting judgment was delivered at the Court this morning by Mr 3. E. McCarthy, S.M., in the case in which the police took action against Edward McGintjr, licensee of the Provincial Hotel, for employing an unlicensed barmaid. At the hearing the facts that the young woman was unlicensed and that she was employed were admitted, and the question tor the Magistrate to determine was,' “Is the place open - for the sale of liquor a bar within the meaning of section 4 of the Licensing Act?” ■ His Worship visited the hotel and found there were two places for the sale of liquor, one abutting on Clive square, the other partly abutting on Clive square and partly on Emerson street. In the latter case there was a door on to the street, but this was always kept looked, and entrance to the bar could only be obtained from the inside by means of a passage and two doors. His Worship said that keeping in view the structure of the place, its proximity to two streets, and the structure of a recess between it and the highway, he had no difficulty- in deciding that the place used by defendant for the-sale of liquor was a bar within ■ the meaning of the Act and it having been open for the sale of liquor at a time when defendant had employed in his private bar an unregistered barmaid a conviction must ensue. As this case was, however, a test one, he said, and one that reasonably called for interpretation defendant would he convicted and - fined one shilling. There would be no order as to costs or an endorsement.