Kinematograph year book (1944)

146 The Kin evnato graph Year Book. had complained he would have made other arrangements. Mr. Goldfinch, who prosecuted, said defendant had no knowledge of what was happening, and no one was responsible. Food Summonses. — A summons which alleged that G.-B. failed to keep accurate records of meals and hot beverages served in the cafe of the Gaumont Palace was dismissed at Chester on October 15, but defendants were ordered to pay 4s. costs and £2 2s. advocate's fee. There were also summonses against the cafe manageress, Mrs. Dorothy Wilson, for making a statement false in a material particular as to the quantity of butter, margarine, cooking fats and cheese obtained for the cafe and failing to keep accurate records. She was fined £2 in respect of one summons and was ordered to pay 4s. costs on each of four other summonses. For G.-B. it was stated that they relied on their manageress and had taken every step to comply with the law. Demanded Personal Points. — A fine of £4 and £3 7s. 6d. costs was imposed at Portsmouth on January 21 on Robert Cecil Hawkes, manager of the Cosham Kinema, Portsmouth, for unlawfully obtaining personal points coupons. The offence was alleged to have occurred as the result of a theft of chocolates at the kinema. Hawkes assembled the staff and invited the one responsible to confess. No one confessed, and he then told the staff that each must pay threepence and surrender personal points coupons in respect of the chocolates. He collected 18 coupons and 7s. 6d. in money. Defendant, who pleaded guilty, said there was no intention on his part of obtaining coupons for his own greed and satisfaction ; he had to make good the loss of the chocolates and of the coupons. BREACH OF REGULATIONS. Film Store Fire. — Prosecutions, consequent upon a fire at premises occupied by United Artists Corporation, Ltd., Bath Lane, Newcastle, in November, 1942, failed at Newcastle .on July 5. They were charged with having failed to provide fire-resisting partitions and self-closing doors in the stores part of the premises, and with having failed to take measures to prevent a fire in the film store from spreading readily to other parts of the building. Evidence at the previous hearing was that a serious fire occurred on the defendants' premises in Bath Lane. An inspection lamp got overheated and set fire to a piece of film. The despatch room caught fire, the ceiling of which was not fireproof, and the rest of the building was involved. In all 17 people had to be got out, the last four just before the place burst into flames. Had there been self-closing doors between the despatch room and the film repair and storage rooms the flames would have been more readily confined to the fire resistance part of the building. Dr. Charlesworth submitted that the prosecution had not proved that any condition was attached to the use of the premises and that there was no offence. The premises, he said, were regularly inspected by the police. UnderAge Operator.— A sequel to a fire at the New Hall Kinema, Yate, near Bristol, was the appearance at Chipping Sodbury Police Court of J. Lavington Mott, proprietor of the kinema, who was charged with permitting the operating box to be in charge of the second operator, who was under the age of 18. Defendant said his chief operator had been detained on the afternoon in question and did not reach the kinema until 2.20 p.m., just after the fire. A fine of £5 with 14s. costs was imposed. Seventeen-Year-Old in Charge.— A fine of £2 was imposed on Louis Henry Bacon, manageroperator of the. Palladium, Beeston, for permitting a 17-year-old operator to be in charge of the projection-room. Defendant told the Nottingham Bench that he had gone out to post some letters. He had to do that because of shortage of staff. Regulations stipulated that a competent person over 18 years should be in charge. Smoked in Film Store. — In a building where 30 tons of kinematograph film were stored, Norman Johnson, despatch manager at British Lion Manchester branch, was observed by an inspector to be smoking, thus infringing the Celluloid and Cinematograph Film Act. On September 2 he was fined the maximum penalty of £5. A girl of 15, who was similarly summoned, was discharged with a caution. Set Fire to Films. — At Oxford on January 16, Anthony Ray Taylor (43) and a boy of 15 were summoned for committing £175 malicious damage by setting fire to films at the Electra, Oxford. Taylor was the second operator, arid the boy his assistant. It was alleged they had ignited the films instead of putting them in a rubbish box on the roof. There were about 800 persons in the kinema at the time. Taylor accepted full responsibility, but did not think himself guilty of a criminal offence. He did everything possible to put the fire out. It was submitted that burning the films was not an offence under the Malicious Damages Act. The magistrates dismissed the summonses and agreed to state a case. Unfenced Flywheel. — Glamorgan Cinemas were fined £1 and £1 costs on March n for failing to fence properly the flywheel of an oil engine. The case was a sequel to an accident in October in which a 16-year-old employee was injured. Fireman left his Post.— William Thomas Waring, a St. Helens kinema fireman, who slipped away from his post of duty in order to get some cigarettes, was fined 10s. for being absent from a kinema during an exhibition of films. A police inspector told the court that when making a routine police call at a public-house one night he saw Waring, who should then have been on duty at the Sutton Empire. Regulations Broken.— Summoned at Willesden Police Court for offences against the kinematograph regulations, Vincent Joseph Wareing, proprietor of the Picardy, Harlesden High Street, was fined a total of £7 with £3 3s. costs. He pleaded guilty to failing to see that the door to the projection enclosure was kept shut, not guilty to failing to see that the rewinding-room door was kept closed, and not guilty to failing to abstain from any act which was likely to cause fire or was not reasonably necessary for the purpose of exhibition in that a second projector was set running and left unattended. It was stated that both the doors to the projection and rewinding rooms were wedged open, and an operator was lacing a film on to one projector while another was running unattended. A second operator who should have been there arrived after the inspector. For the defence it was stated that Mr. Wareing was not at the