CONVICTIONS ENTERED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26693, 12 February 1948, Page 5

CONVICTIONS ENTERED

LIQUOR AT RADIO BALL DIFFICULTY OF DEFINING PRIVATE DANCE P.a; WELLINGTON. Feb. 11. “ It may be, as counsel for the defendants urges, that if such a ball as the radio ball is not a private dance excluded from the operation of section 59 of the Statutes Amendment Act, 1939, then it is almost impossible to conceive what dance can escape that section. That may be the position. If it calls for a remedy, that is a matter for the Legislature.” This was stated in a judgment delivered in the Magistrate’s Court to-day convicting five members of the Social Committee of the National Broadcasting Service, whose employees held a dance in the Majestic Cabaret on September 23. The defendants had pleaded not guilty on January 30 to a charge that, having the management of a dance in a private dance hall, they permitted liquor to enter the hall. Alternative charges of permitting the consumption of liquor in the hall were withdrawn by the police. A similar charge against Frederick Carr, managing director of New Zealand Attractions, Ltd., the owners of the cabaret, was dismissed. Mr A. M. Goulding, in his judgment, said that as each of the other five defendants honestly believed he was within his legal rights, he would impose a penalty of £3 on one defendant, and the others would be convicted and ordered to pay costs only. The judgment added that there was no suggestion whatever that the radio ball was conducted in any but an orderly and proper manner.