Further provisions with respect to shellfish

16 Oysters not to be sold between certain dates.

(1)

Subject to subsection (2) of this section, any person who between the 14th May in any year and the following 4th August sells, exposes for sale, buys for sale, or consigns to any person for the purpose of sale, any description of oysters shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding, in the case of a first offence, F1level 1 on the standard scale or, in the case of a second or subsequent offence, F1level 1 on the standard scale and, in any case, to forfeit the oysters exposed for sale, bought for sale or consigned to any person for the purpose of sale, in contravention of this subsection.

(2)

A person shall not be guilty of an offence under this section if he satisfies the court that the oysters alleged to have been sold, exposed for sale, bought for sale or consigned to any person for the purpose of sale—

(a)

were originally taken within the waters of a foreign state, or

(b)

were preserved in tins or otherwise cured, or

(c)

were intended for the purpose of oyster cultivation within the same district in which the oysters were taken, or

(d)

were taken from any place for cultivation with the consent of the appropriate Minister F2, or

(e)

were Pacific or Japanese oysters (Crassostrea gigas), Portuguese oysters (Crassostrea angulata) or other members of the genusCrassostrea.

(3)

For the purposes of subsection (2)(c) of this section a district is—

(a)

the Thames Estuary, bounded by a line drawn from Orford Ness to the North Foreland, and

(b)

any other area for the time being constituted a district for the purposes of this section by an order of the appropriate Minister;

and where the place at which oysters are taken is not within any such district, so much of the area within ten miles of that place as is not included in any such district shall be deemed to be a district for those purposes.

(4)

The appropriate Minister may by a subsequent order revoke or vary any order made by him under subsection (3)(b) of this section.