Temperance (Scotland) Act 1913
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Citation | 1913 c. 33 |
| Year | 1913 |
Temperance (Scotland) Act, 1913
(3 & 4 Geo. 5.) CHAPTER 33.
An Act to promote Temperance in Scotland by conferring on the electors in prescribed areas control over the grant and renewal of certificates; by securing a later hour of opening for licensed premises; by amending the law relating to clubs; and by other provisions incidental thereto.
[15th August 1913]
Be it enacted by the King's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—
1 Date of Act coming into operation.
1. This Act shall, except as otherwise in this Act provided, come into operation on the expiration of eight years from the first day of June nineteen hundred and twelve.
2 Poll of electors on resolutions submitted.
(1) If, in the manner hereinafter provided, a requisition demanding a poll under this Act in any area is found by the local authority to have been duly signed, the local authority shall cause a poll of the electors in such area (hereinafter called ‘a poll’) to be taken in accordance with the provisions of this Act.
(2) The questions to be submitted to the electors at a poll shall be the adoption in and for such area of (a ) a no-change resolution, or (b ) a limiting resolution, or (c ) a no-licence resolution.
(3) On a poll in any area—
(a ) if fifty-five per cent. at least of the votes recorded are in favour of a no-licence resolution, and not less than thirty-five per cent. of the electors for such area on the register have voted in favour thereof, such resolution shall be deemed to be carried; or if
(b ) a majority of the votes recorded are in favour of a limiting resolution, and not less than thirty-five per cent. of the electors for such area on the register have voted in favour thereof, such resolution shall be deemed to be carried; or if
(c ) a majority of the votes recorded are in favour of a no-change resolution, or if no other resolution is carried, a no-change resolution shall be deemed to be carried; and
any such resolution so carried shall come into force on the twenty-eighth day of May immediately following the taking of the poll.
(4) An elector shall not be entitled to vote for more than one of the resolutions submitted at the poll, but, if a no-licence resolution be not carried, the votes recorded in favour of such resolution shall be added to those recorded in favour of the limiting resolution, and shall be deemed to have been recorded in favour thereof.
(5) Any such resolution if carried shall remain in force until the resolution is repealed or superseded as hereinafter provided.
3 Effect of resolutions, if carried.
(1) For the period during which a no-licence resolution remains in force in any area, no certificate shall be granted therein; except that the licensing court may, on being satisfied that under the special circumstances of the case any certificate is reasonably required notwithstanding the fact that a no-licence resolution is in force in the area, grant one or more certificates for an inn and hotel or for premises structurally adapted for use and bon fide used or to be used as a restaurant: Provided that any certificate so granted shall be deemed to include the conditions that there shall be on the certificated premises no drinking-bar or other part of the premises mainly or exclusively used for the sale or consumption of excisable liquors, and that such liquors shall be sold therein by retail only and to none but persons lodging or residing in the inn and hotel, or persons taking a meal on the premises of the restaurant or (if the court so sanction) of the inn and hotel, for consumption with such meal; and provided further that it shall be a condition of the renewal of any such certificate in any year after the year in which it is first granted under the provisions of this section that the applicant shall satisfy the court by production of an excise licence or otherwise that he is entitled to a reduction of duty in terms of section forty-five of the Finance (1909-10) Act, 1910 .
(2) For the period during which a limiting resolution remains in force in any area, without prejudice to the other powers or discretion of the licensing court, it shall not be lawful for the licensing court to grant a greater number of certificates in such area than the nearest integral number which shall not exceed seventy-five per cent. of the number of certificates in force at the date at which such resolution is carried.
(3) If a limiting resolution is carried, the licensing court shall, before the first day of February following the poll, meet for the purpose of preparing a scheme for carrying out in the area the requirements of the resolution, which scheme shall give the particulars of any premises the certificates of which the court propose to withdraw, and every scheme prepared as aforesaid shall forthwith be advertised by the clerk to the licensing court in a newspaper circulating in the area and shall be open to the inspection of the public for three weeks before the first day of March following the poll at a place to be stated in the advertisement.
(4) Before the general half-yearly meeting of the licensing court held in April, the licensing court shall meet for the purpose of hearing the parties interested in the said scheme and adjusting the said scheme for consideration at the said April meeting, and the licensing court shall, at that meeting or at any adjournment thereof, take the scheme so adjusted into consideration, and, after hearing parties interested therein, so far as not already heard, and, if they modify the scheme, after hearing parties interested in any modification, shall decide upon the certificates to be withdrawn.
(5) The decision of the licensing court in refusing or reducing certificates in pursuance of a no-licence resolution or of a limiting resolution shall not be subject to appeal.
(6) It shall not be competent for a member of a licensing court to sign a requisition for a poll under this Act.
4 Resolutions at further polls.
(1) Where a poll has been taken, and such poll, or the declared result thereof has not been declared void in terms of this Act, a further poll shall not be taken before the month of November in the third year from the date of the last poll.
(2) Such further poll may be taken—
(a ) if a no-change resolution is in force, or a limiting resolution or no-licence resolution has been repealed, for the following options, that is to say, for a further no-change resolution, or for a no-licence resolution, or for a limiting resolution;
(b ) if a limiting resolution is in force, for the following options, that is to say, for the repeal or continuance of any such resolution, or for a further limiting resolution, or for a no-licence resolution, provided that, if the repeal of any such resolution is not carried, the votes in favour of such repeal shall be added to those recorded in favour of a countenance resolution and shall be deemed to have been recorded in favour thereof; and
(c ) if a no-licence resolution is in force, for repealing the same.
(3) The provisions of section two of this Act, except as regards the questions to be submitted to the electors, shall apply to such further polls, provided that where a further poll is taken in any area where a limiting resolution or a no-licence resolution is in force and the majority of the votes recorded is not in favour of the repeal of such resolution, such repeal shall not be carried.
5 Supplemental provisions.
(1) The requisition for a poll shall be in the form set out in Schedule I. to this Act, and shall be signed by not less than one-tenth of the electors in the area; and the signatures to the said requisition shall be appended thereto with the full addresses of the signatories, on papers which shall be issued on demand of any elector by the clerk to the local authority, not earlier than the fifteenth day of August immediately preceding the month in which the requisition is to be lodged; and such papers shall bear on each sheet the date of issue. The requisition shall be lodged during the month of September in any year with the clerk to the local authority, who shall thereupon insert, in not less than two newspapers circulating in the area, a notice of the receipt of such requisition, and shall allow inspection of the requisition by any elector, but, after the requisition has been so lodged, no signatures thereto may be withdrawn.
(2) On the day on which a poll under this Act is taken in any area, all the certificated premises in such area in which excisable liquors are sold by retail shall remain closed for the sale of such liquors until after the hour fixed for the close of the poll, but nothing in this subsection contained shall prohibit the sale of such liquors to lodgers or to bon fide travellers taking meals on the premises in any room usually set apart for that purpose, for consumption therein at the meal, or the sale, distribution, or delivery of excisable liquors under the conditions prescribed by section sixty-three of the Licensing (Scotland) Act, 1903 .
(3) A poll shall be taken on any day not being a market day which the local authority may fix in the month either of November or of December immediately following the lodging of the requisition: Provided that in a county a poll shall be taken only in the year of a triennial election of county councilors, except in the case of a poll held in the year in which a resolution under this Act is first competent; and provided further that, if a poll, or the declared result thereof, is by a judgment of the Court of Session declared void, the Court may, if they think fit, order the local...
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