CHARGES DISMISSED

Southland Times, Issue 24773, 18 June 1942, Page 5

CHARGES DISMISSED

(P.A.) WANGANUI, June 17. An unusual licensing case was heard in the Magistrate’s Court when nine cricketers were charged with being illegally In a hotel after hours. The charges were the sequel to a cricket club’s end of season dinner, when the cricketers were found in the licensee’s private bar ebout 8.20 p.m., about 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 the evidence was 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 (nearly all the others attending the dinner having by this time left the premises) were invited by the licensee to have a farewell drink with him when the treasurer went and settled up for the dinner. The explanation that the men were invited to have a farewell drink with him was given by the licensee in the bar at the time. No money changed hands and actually no liquor had been consumed when the police arrived, although some drinks had been poured. The Magistrate, Mr J. H. Salmon, said a 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 have been accepted, although the circumstances might have looked suspicious to the police. He dismissed charges against the licensee of selling, exposing for sale and keeping open for sale. After a charge against one cricketer of being illegally on premises was also dismissed, the police withdrew the remainder.