PUBLICAN FINED

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 20098, 3 May 1935, Page 6

PUBLICAN FINED

TRADING AFTER HOURS Following a visit by the police to the Commercial Hotel on the night of April 20, the licensee, Daniel Small, appeared before Mr C. R. Orr-Walker, S.M., at the Magistrate’s Court yesterday, charged with selling liquor after hours. Mr W. D. Campbell, who appeared for defendant, pleaded guilty. Senior-Sergeant Hewitt said that when the police visited the hotel late at night they found a number of men in the bar with liquor in front of them. The licensee had been quite candid and admitted selling the drink. Mr Campbell said the information had been given by a person who was suspected of obtaining liquor and later disposing of it to youths. The licensee on that particular night refused to serve the person, who had gone and telephoned the police. The licensee did not serve disreputable people. Although he had been convicted previously, he had considerably improved the hotel during the last four years. The men found on the premises were all respectable. In reply to the Magistrate, SeniorSergeant Hewitt said that defendant had been convicted last on April 12, 1934. He had been previously convicted four years ago. Small was convicted and fined £5 with costs.

“So these are the people who led the innocent publican astray,” remarked the Magistrate when James Butler, Frank Christie, William Henry, Albert Roper and Frederick Joseph Roper pleaded guilty to being found on the premises after hours. They were each convicted and fined £1 with costs 10/-.