Kinematograph year book (1944)

In the Courts. 145 In the Courts BREACHES OF WAR REGULATIONS. TOO Much Coal. — At Plymouth Police Court, in May, Cory Bros. & Co., Ltd., and the Devonport Cinema Co., Ltd., of Cardiff, were each fined £5, the former for having supplied and the latter for having received an amount of coal in excess of the permitted quantity. The excess amounts alleged were 9 ton 4 cwt. 3 qr., supplied on August 18, 1942, and n ton 5 cwt., supplied on December 11 of the same year. Twenty-six Lights Had to be Left On.— When Associated British Cinemas, Ltd., were fined £10, with three guineas costs, at East Ham on May 28 for wasting electricity and gas at the Coronation, Manor Park, it was said that the police found 26 lights and six gas-lit exit signs burning just before midnight. They had to be left on till the cleaners came at 8 a.m., as the fire-watcher in charge did not know where the switches were. Spent More Than £100.— At Caernarvonshire (North Wales) Quarter Sessions, two charges of contravening the Defence (General) Regulations, 1939, were preferred against Edward Gubay, amusement caterer, Llanfairfechan. The first was one of executing building operations in excess of £100 without a licence from the Ministry of Works and Buildings, and the other that, with intent to deceive, the defendant falsely represented to the Ministry that he had paid a guinea and no more to William J. Bowen, an architect, for work done in connection with the alterations. Defendant pleaded guilty. Prosecuting, J. P. Elsden, referring to the second charge, said that Mr. Bowen had stated before the magistrates that he was paid £5 or five guineas by the defendant for preparing plans, and that he was asked by the defendant to make a receipt out for a guinea. Gubay was fined £50 on each of the two charges, and ordered to pay the taxed costs of the prosecution. Building Order Fines. — On a charge of contravening the Control of Building Order, Central Pictures (Portobello), Ltd., and Forth Cinema Co., both of Glasgow, were each fined £50 at Edinburgh in June. John McKissack & Son, architects, 56, West Regent Street, Glasgow, were fined £30 for a similar offence. For a breach of the Emergency Lighting Regulations at the Roxy, King Street, Blackburn, Wyndham Edgar Wh alley, 2, Bay wood Street, the manager, was fined 40s. at Blackburn Police Court on August 4. Poster Offence.— Anthony Joseph Jordan, Eltham, was fined £2 at Woolwich on December 31 for making six posters exceeding 1,200sq.m. in area, contrary to the Control of Paper Order, and British Union Varieties, Ltd., Survey House, Bond Street, Leeds, were fined £7, with £2 2s. costs, for exhibiting four of the posters, which, it was alleged, were not printed or made before November 12, 1941. Defendants pleaded guilty. A solicitor for the Ministry of Supply said four of the posters were exhibited outside Lewisham Hippodrome and advertised the reopening of that place. Mr. Vincent, a director of the defendant company, was seen, and he accepted responsibility for the posters, adding : " It was an oversight on my part. I ordered them over the 'phone and did not think of the regulations. It was done on old paper." Jordan was also seen, and he admitted he had made the posters in May, 1942, saying he did not think the paper regulations applied to stock posters. For the defence it was said that Jordan was a printer in a small way, and when the Order for the posters was passed they had not the regulations in mind. It was a pure "slip up." The magistrate said he thought this matter was an oversight. Fire Watching Offences. — For failing to carry out an approved fire-watch scheme and for tendering four subsistence claim forms which were false in a material particular, Shaw's Amusements, Ltd., proprietors of the Empire, Great Cheetham Street, Broughton, were fined £10 with £2 ns. od. costs, and Thomas Jennings, the manager, £4 with £1 is. costs at the Salford Police Court on September 10. It was alleged by the prosecution that a police officer discovered that on certain dates no one was on fire-watch duty. Many discrepancies were then found between the entries in the kinema fire-watch log-book and the forms sent to the City Treasurer's Department claiming the reimbursement of allowance paid to each fire-guard on duty. There was no suggestion that money had been wrongfully obtained, but wrong entries had apparently been made to mislead the authority as to the actual position. Failed to Fire-Watch.— For failing to firewatch, on May 26, at the Gaumont, Liverpool, of which he was manager, Stanley Vincent Murdoch, aged 27, was fined £5 on July 19. Murdoch pleaded " Not guilty." Six similar summonses, referring to other dates, were dismissed, and one withdrawn. Prosecution alleged that defendant failed to fire-watch, and left a paid fire-watcher to do it alone. Murdoch claimed that he had carried out his duties on the dates mentioned, with the exception of May 26, when he was not well, and had slept in his dressing room. BREACHES OF RATIONING ORDERS. Staff Tea Unused. — Arthur Edward Foster, manager of the Regal, Bexley Heath, was fined £10, £5 5s. iees and £3 4s. 6d. costs at Dartford on January 22 for a contravention of the Rationing Order, it being alleged that he used tea for a purpose other than that specified, he having applied for a permit for the use of his employees, and 8 lb. of tea was not used for them. He pleaded not guilty. A permit for tea for those employed at the Regal was granted in November, 1942, and evidence was given by a number of employees, the majority of whom said they had not had tea and had only seen the cleaners having it. Defendant, giving evidence, said finding the tea was not being used, he put it into the caddy in his room for general use. The staff was entitled to it, so he never worried about it. If any of the staff