HOTEL-KEEPER FINED £2

Taranaki Daily News, 11 September 1934, Page 11

HOTEL-KEEPER FINED £2

MORE THAN TECHNICAL BREACH. INCIDENTS AT GROSVENOR HOTEL. Harrison Ashworth Nodder, licensee of the Grosvenor Hotel, New Plymouth, represented by Mr. •A. A. Bennett, was fined £2 and costs 10s on a charge of selling liquor after hours when Mr. W. H. Woodward, S.M., delivered his reserved judgment in the New Plymouth Magistrate's Court yesterday in a series ( of licensing charges against Nodder which were heard at previous sittings. Two charges of Opening for sale and one of exposing for Sale were dismissed. In the one charge on which Nodder was con-' victed the magistrate said that under the circumstances he had imposed only a small fine. George Bowler, Nodder’S barman, was fined £5 and costs on one charge of selling after hours. On a second charge of selling he was convicted and discharged. A charge of opening for sale after hours was withdrawn. SeniorSergeant E. T. C. Turner prosecuted. Giving his judgment, the magistrate said the police evidence was that the police had met a man coming out of the hotel at 9.15 p.m. carrying a jar of beer which the barman, Bowler, who was resident at the hotel, had sold him at 7 pm. and which had been left in the office in the interim by arrangement The police then entered the hotel bar and found five men there. He was satisfied that the five men had been served by the barman shortly before the police

arrival. . The barman’s statement, read m front of Nodder, was to the effect that he did not know whether or not the men were lodgers. It was clear, said the magis--1 trate, that Bowler had sold a jar of beer at 7 p.m. to a man he certainly knew was not a lodger. He found that Bowler had known that the five were not lodgers and that Bowler served them in that knowledge. If Bowler did not know they were not lodgers he had been reckless as to whether they were or were not. After hours Bowler’s only duty was to stock the bar in the morning and ■ clear up at night. Nodder also stated that Bowler had authority to serve lodgers when his wife and he were absent. Bowler had a key to the bar. The magistrate found that Bowlers authority was to sell in the bar during open hours and serve lodgers in closed hours; the authority amounting to a general one. The licensee must be at least technically responsible even if he had placed certain limits oil the barman s authority which the barrriari might have disregarded. The final question was whether the licensee’s liability was a ' technical or real one. The barman, BoWlfer, had been taken over with the hotel m April. He had had a clean record of 20 years then, but four months later was found engaged m something like wholesale trading after hours. He had sold a jar of beer at 7 p.m. and at 9.15 there were five men in the bar. The bar door was opened to a gentle knock by the police which suggested that it would have been opened to anyone who knocked. There was certainly a suggestion that the change in management was responsible for the barman’s changed attitude. Another matter was the leaving of the jar in the office. Presumably the barman did not know Nodder had gone out. It was suggested Bowler had no fear of the licensee’s disapproval if the jar were •found in the Office and the men in the

bar. • The facts suggested more , than a technical breach but did not prove more. Against that was the fact that Nodder became a licensee only recently and might not have known the rule of vicarious liability. Nodder had urged the barman to tell the truth to the police. He considered that though there was a suspicion of something more than a technical liability he would give Nodder the benefit of the doubt. He could not dismiss the information, however, as he had done in other cases where it had been perfectly clear that the breaches were only technical. ■ On behalf of Bowler, Mr. Bennett said he was a single man and had been a barman for 20. years, the present being his first appearance before the Court. Bowler had been frank with the police. He had taken a risk in obliging some people and had been caught. He had been warned by his employer that a recurrence would mean dismissal. As it was Bowler’s' first offence and in view of his excellent record, Mr. Bennett said he felt justified in asking for a light penalty.