AFTER HOURS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 20107, 28 March 1928, Page 7

AFTER HOURS

LIQUOR AND HOTEL GUESTS DEFENDANTS MAKE APPEAL. | Per Tress Association.) WELLINGTON, Alarch 27.

The Court of Appeal this afternoon heard the appeals of Timothy O’Connell, of Wellington, barman, and Alichael Burke, of Wellington, hotelkeeper, against o. W. Claason, police sergeant. The appeal is from convictions by Air E. Page, S.AI., under the Licensing Act. The facts as set out in the judgment of the Alagistrate are briefly as follows: —

Information against O’Connell alalleged that on June 23, 1927, being a person other tnan a licensee in a city hotel, he unlawfully supplied liquor to Charles Middleditch, who was not entitled lawfully to be given same. The informtion against Burke alleged .that being the holder of a publican’s 'license issued in respect of a city hotel, he unlawfully allowed liquor to be consumed on such premises after closing hours.

The evidence showed that at 6.22 p.m. on June 23 a sergeant and constable of police entered the hotel and in the public bar they found six men, three of them being barmen who were employed in the hotel but who were off duty on tjiis afternoon, and the other three, Middleditch, Turner and Andrews being friends of one of these barmen. In front of the various men were glasses containing liquor partly consumed and behind the bar in his shirt sleeves was the defendant O’Connell. The main door to the bar was locked but the slide which looks from the passage into the bar was open. The bar was higher up and the licensee (Burke) was upstairs.

Mr Page added: “The result of decisions relating to the right of a person living in an hotel to supply liquor during closing hours to a friend who is his bona fide guest appears to be that a person other than the licensee may lawfully supply liquor to a guest of the licensee or to the guests of a lodger, but not the guest of the wife, nor to the guest of a servant in the house. This result is not one at which I should have arrived unaided, and I am unable to find in the Statute a satisfactory basis for the distinction. Recent Supreme Court decisions are, however, binding on this Court.” Mr Perry appeared for appellants and Air Macassey for respondents. Judgment was reserved.