WINE LABELS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22391, 12 October 1934, Page 11

WINE LABELS

INTERESTING TEST CASE MAGISTRATE’S DECISION UPHELD. (Peb United Pbess Association.) WELLINGTON, October 11. Dismissing the appeal of T* and W. Young and Co. from the decision of the magistrate convicting the firm for a breach of section 209 of the Licensing Act in respect of the labelling of wine bottles, Mr Justice Reed said it was not sufficient compliance with the section to affix a spearatc. label with the bare words “bottled in New Zealand," and the name of the bottler; it was the label descriptive of the contents that must bear that inscription. This case, which was heard before Mr Justice Reed, involved an appeal from a judgment of Mr E. Page, S.M., who convicted in July last Campbell Young and Arthur Young, trading as T. and W. Young, Ltd. for being in possession of illegal bottle labels under section 209 of the Licensing Act. The appeal was regarded as a test case, prosecutions being adjourned sine die in Wellington, Auckland, and Christchurch in the same connection. The alleged offence concerns the practice, stated to have been in vogue for 50 years without challenge in the form of prosecution, of wine and spirit merchants supplying descriptive labels of embellishment to trade purchasers of bulk wine. Depending upon whether the actual bottlers and sellers of the wine add words indicating where and by whom the wine is bottled, the Licensing Act may be infringed. On behalf of the Crown, it was alleged that the possession of labels which do not show who the bottlers are constituted an offence as contemplated bv the statute. At the hearing in Wellington on Monday decision was reserved. The magistrate had fined the appellant £2O, the minimum fine.