EXPENSIVE DRINKS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 804, 26 October 1929, Page 1

EXPENSIVE DRINKS

23 MEN FINED £126 TWO HOTELS RAIDED Press Association WELLINGTON, Today. As a sequel to a recent police raid, Mr. Falkner, licensee of the Albert Hotel, was charged with selling liquor after hours, aiding and assisting others in the offence of being found on licensed premises after hours, and failing to admit the police without unnecessary delay. Informations of allowing liquor to be consumed in the hotel after hours, exposing liquor for sale after hours, and opening for gale after hours were withdrawn. The barman. Jack O’Brien, had six informations preferred against him, five being withdrawn, so that he was only charged with selling after hours. Sub-Inspector Lander, outlining the case, said the police had reason to believe that the licensee had set himself out to carry on an illegal trade by watching the movements of the uniform police and, on keeping a watch, it was found as a fact that trade was being carried on, men being let in at a side door when all was clear. Sometimes the licensee himself would be out on the footpath mingling with other men and watching the police. On the night of the raid the licensee himself was letting men in. Inspector Lander said the police knocked vainly for 20 minutes, and eventually a constable pushed open a balcony window. He found the licensee, his wife and child in bed, but a torch showed that the jToom was full of men.

The licensee instructed the barman, who was also in the room, to so down and let the police in. The licensee tried to say he did not know the police were knocking and tried to shoulder all the blame on the barman.

Falkner was fined £lO for selling after hours, £5 for failing to admit rhe police, and £3 on the aiding charge, the first two convictions bemg endorsed on his licence. O’Brien was fined £lO and the 14 men who were on the premises were each fined £2. On the same night Barrett’s Hotel was visited by a police sergeant and seven men, who were found with glasses of liquor in front of them, could not satisfactorily explain their presence and each was fined £lO. The charges against the licensee and the porter were adjourned for a week, the police not opposing the application.