POLICE VISIT CITY HOTEL LATE ON A SATURDAY NIGHT

Wanganui Chronicle, 21 January 1947, Page 2

POLICE VISIT CITY HOTEL LATE ON A SATURDAY NIGHT

THIRTEEN MEN CAUGHT / police visit to the Albion Hotel at 11.40 p.m. on Saturday, December 14, led to the appearance of the licensee, Ainslie Bertram Charles Dunston in the Magistrate's Court, Wanganui, yesterday. He admitted a charge of selling liquor after hours and was tinea £l5. On a further charge of selling liquor to a lodger without a written order, defendant was fined £5. Twelve men found on the premises were each fined £2, costs 10s. Another man, who pleaded not guilty, was convicted and fined £l, costs 10s. Sergeant W. Tumilty told the Court that Sergeant M. E. Parker and Constable Burgess entered the hotel by a side gate and found six men in the yard. The licensee, with two men, was in the passage near the bar slide. The bar was in semi darkness, but when the lights were switched on several men, two of them lodgers, were found inside. In all, 13 men were found unlawfully on the premises.

Mr. C. F. Treadwell said that this was the first time defendant had been convicted since the annual meeting in June, last, of the Wanganui Licensing Committee. The date, December 14, might be termed the beginning of the festive season. The house was full and many of the guests were unknown to the licensee personally. It was difficult to distinguish between who should be on the premises and those who should not be entitled to be there. During busy periods it was also very difficult to comply with the law which required lodgers to sign for all drinks served after hours.

Counsel added that the charges against the licensee were laid under the Licensing Act Emergency Regulations, 1942. This legislation was brought in to cover the war period, but the war had been over for more than a year. “I would suggest that it is high time these regulations were repealed, but the difficulty could be overcome if the police laid these charges under the licensing act,” said counsel. The magistrate said the Court was not concerned with the reasons why these regulations were kept alive, this being a question of policy. "I have to administer these emergency regulations, which provide a minimum penalty of £10,” the magistrate added.

He commented that in 1944 the licensee was convicted for selling, and. in 1945 for exposing. A little later he was convicted for serving a lodger without a written order, and in May, 1946, was again convicted for selling. “It is obvious, said the magistrate, ‘that inflicting the minimum penalty has not had its effect.”