SHADES HOTEL.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16359, 23 February 1921, Page 7

SHADES HOTEL.

SIX O'CLOCK CLOSING AND RENT.

RULING BY SUPREME COURT.

Six o’clock closing and the reduction of the rent of the Shades Hotel in consequence thereof were subjects of a reserved judgment delivered by his Honor Mr Justice Herdman in the Supreme Court to-day. The parties were William Henry Grantley Norton, auctioneer. James Cecil Palmer, formerly of Christchurch, a medical practitioner, and Cecil George M’Kellar, of Christchurch, an account* ant, carrying on business a 9 the Shand Block Syndicate, plaintiffs, and Quill, Morris and Co., an incorporated company carrying on business in Chuncery Lane, Christchurch, defendants. Mr M. -T. Gresson represented plaintiffs and Mr W. J. Sim the defendant company. The plaintiffs, who, under a lease to the defendant company, it was stated, were the lessors of the Shades Hotel, on February 2d, 1918, entered into an agreement with the defendant company to reduce the rent payable under the lease pursuant to the provisions of the Sale of Liquor Restriction Act, 1917, a statute which was passed to meet the difficulties which it was thought would arise when the principle of six o’clock closing became operative. The agreement contained the statement: “This reduction is made under the Sale of Liquor Restriction Act, 1917, and is to last during the term of the present lease of the Shades Hotel or during the continuance of the present war and for six months after, whichever period 13 the shorter.” Section 12 of the Sal© of Liquor Restriction Act, 1917, settled the term of* the life of that statute by declaring that it should remain in force during the continuance of the war with Germany and for six months thereafter and no longer. However, the Legislature, in its wisdom, determined to make six o’clock closing a permanent institution in New Zealand, and in tlio year 1918 repealed section 12 of th© Act of 1917. “I havo no doubt that the arrangement arrived at between tho plaintiffs and the defendants was entered into upon the assumption that six o’clock closing would cease when the war ended, bub that does not in my opinion help the defendants. The agreement which they entered into is an award within the meaning of section 13 of the Act- of 1917, which provides that an award shall continue in force “ during the continuance of the lease or for ,the duration of this Act, whichever period is the shorter.” But the parties to the present litigation have expressly modified this statutory provision by' declaring that the reduction of rent during tho lease should continue during the term of the lease or during the continuance of the war with Germany and for six months afterwards, whichever period was the shorter, and I fail to see how I am to avoid giving effect to the definite agreement which the parties to the lease entered into deliberately. Although the parties to th© agreement have declared it shall l>e treated as an award made under the Act it is not an award made by arbitrators or by an umpire. . The lessors and lessees were free to make their own terms. ... I fail to see upon what principle I can strike out from the contract the undertaking to pay a reduced rent until the war came to an end. . . . Six months having expired since the war officially terminated, tho plaintiffs are in my opinion entitled to receive the rent which the memorandum of lease referred to in th© case stated originally 7 reserved. T’he plaintiffs are allowed the sum of £lO 10s for costs.