GUESTS OF LICENSEE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24945, 18 June 1942, Page 2

GUESTS OF LICENSEE

SEQUEL TO CRICKET CLUB DINNER (P.A.) WANGANUI, June 17. An unusual licensing case was heard in the Magistrate's Court to-day, when nine cricketers were charged with being illegally in an hotel after hours. The charge.s were the sequel to a cricket club end-of-season dinner. When the cricketers were found in the licensee's private bar about 8.20 p.m., 10 minutes or a quarter of an hour after the finish of the dinner, no explanation was asked of them at the time, but in court evidence was given that a group, consisting mostly of executive members of the club who were waiting to go on together to another gathering beginning at 8.30, was invited by the licensee to have a farewell drink with him while the treasurer settled up for the dinner. By this lime, nearly all the others who had attended the dinner had left the premises. The licensee said that no money changed hands and actually no liquor had been consumed when the police arrived, although some of the drinks had been poured The magistrate (Mr J. H. Salmon) said the licensee could supply liquor at any time to any person other than a prohibited person, provided the transaction was not a sale. For the life of him he could not see why the explanation should not be accepted, although the circumstances may have looked suspicious to the police. He dismissed the charges against the licensee of selling and exposing for sale and keeping open for sale. After the charge against one cricketer of being illegally on the premises had also been dismissed the police withdrew the remainder.