This article is from page 12 of the 2007-11-27 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 12 JPG
A CHARGE against a Lahinch nightclub, accused of allowing an underage girl on the premises, has been dismissed. However, the judge who heard the case commended the gardai and said the State was ‘per- fectly justified’ in bringing the pros- ecution.
Before the court was Sunny Bay Limited, trading as the Claremont Hotel, accused of allowing a person under the age of 18 on the premises while an exemption was in force.
A 17-year-old girl told Ennis Dis- trict Court that she went to the Clare- mont nightclub in Lahinch at around
12 midnight on March 24 last. She was 16 at the time.
She said she was not asked for iden- tification, paid her money and “just eNO .< ore mn 0 Asked by defending solicitor Stephen Nicholas was she “absolute- ly certain” she wasn’t asked for ID, she said she was “positive.” She said on another night previous- ly she had been asked for ID and was not allowed in, as she didn’t have it. Mr Nicholas said that still photo- graphs taken from CCTV footage showed the bouncer looking down at something, as the young girl entered the premises. “We say it’s your ID,” he said. Mr Nicholas said ID was sought that night and no-one is let into the premises without showing it. Sergeant John Ryan told the court he came across a young man in the promenade carpark, shortly after | am. The young man told him he was in Lahinch to collect his 16-year- old sister who was in the Claremont nightclub. He accompanied gardai to the nightclub and located his sister. Shortly after 1.30am, Sgt Ryan spoke to the young girl in the com- pany of the manager of the nightclub, Eamon Fitzgerald. ‘She said she had no ID and wasn’t asked for it. I put that to Eamon Fit- zgerald and he said ‘All I can do 1s put my hands up,” said Sgt Ryan. However Mr Nicholas said Mr Fit- zgerald “didn’t quite say that” but the garda repeated that he did. Sergeant Michael Gallery told the court that he took a statement from Mr Fitzgerald, some time after the incident. “The way I operate the nightclub is I have two staff at the door, to check for underage, drunkenness and trou- blemakers. I operate strict rules in relation to same,’ said Mr Fitzgerald, in the statement. Mr Fitzgerald told the court that if anyone looks “any way borderline” age-wise, his staff ask for ID. Martin Mullins, who worked as a bouncer that night, told the court that “no-one gets in without ID.” He said he did not physically recall the girl showing ID on the night in question, but he had taken ID from her in the past. “Most Saturday nights we would refuse 30 girls and 20 fellas for ID,” he said. Judge Joseph Mangan said, “The State was perfectly justified in bring- ing this prosecution and the diligence of the members of the gardai is to be commended. Their diligence is noth- ing new to the court, where Lahinch is concerned. However, I am left with a doubt in the matter. I’m dismiss- yi iarea