Conditional Licenses.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 4387, 18 March 1909, Page 2

Conditional Licenses.

POSITION AT OHINEMURI

Waihi, |Tuesday. The refusal of the chairman of the Licensing Committee for ithe Qhinemud district (Mr F. J. Burgess, S. M. )to grant a conditional license for the sale of spirituous liquors at the Ohinemuri Jockey Club’s annual race meeting, to be held at Paeroa, came as a surprise, in view of the fact that the members of the_ com- r mittee, offered but few objections to the granting of the license. Spoken , to on the point, Mr Burgess said he could not see how such a license could be granted in view of the fact that no-license had been carried at the recent poll on the local option question. He took his authority from section 24, of subsection C, of the Licensing Act, 1908. It was thought by the applicant and the Ohinemuri Jockey Club Committee that section 28 of the Act was sufficient authority to authorise the committee to grant the license, which, in effect, was that in any district where no-license existed as the result of a licensing poll, it should not be lawful to grant and renew any of the licenses mentioned. They contended that licenses were existing, and would exist to the end of June, and therefore up till then the committee had power to grant licenses. The chairman’s reply to this was that the state of things contemplated by section 28 could only be brought about by the operation of sub-section Cof section 24, and therefore that was the only section which reaUM indicated when a no-license poll began to take effect, and that the word “ thereafter ” used in that section ment immediately after the notification referred to, and not at the termination of the existing licenses, which expired by effluxion of time, and not as the result of the no4icense vote.