Sunday Entertainments Act 1932

1 Provisions as to cinematograph entertainments.

(1) The authority having power, in any area to which this section extends, to grant licences under the [9 Edw. 7. c. 30.] Cinematograph Act, 1909, may, notwithstanding anything in any enactment relating to Sunday observance, allow places in that area licensed under the said Act to be opened and used on Sundays for the purpose of cinematograph entertainments, subject to such conditions as the authority think fit to impose :

Provided that no place shall be allowed to be so opened and used unless among the conditions subject to which it is allowed to be so opened and used there are included conditions for securing—

(a) that no person will be employed by any employer on any Sunday in connection with a cinematograph entertainment or any other entertainment or exhibition given therewith who has been employed on each of the six previous days either by that employer in any occupation or by any other employer in connection with similar entertainments or exhibitions; and

(b) that such sums as may be specified by the authority not exceeding the amount estimated by the authority as the amount of the profits which will be received from cinematograph entertainments given while the place is open on Sundays, and from any other entertainment or exhibition given therewith, and calculated by reference to such estimated profits or to such proportion of them as the authority think fit, will be paid as to the prescribed percentage thereof, if any, to the authority for the purpose of being transmitted to the Cinematograph Fund constituted in accordance with the provisions of this Act, and as to the remainder thereof to such persons as may be specified by the authority for the purpose of being applied to charitable objects;

and for the purpose of any conditions imposed by an authority as to the payment of sums calculated by reference to such estimated profits as aforesaid, the profits shall be computed in such manner as the authority may direct.

(2) For the purposes of section four of the Cinematograph Act, 1909 (which contains provisions as to the enforcement of the conditions of licences) any conditions subject to which a place is allowed under this section to be opened and used on Sundays shall be deemed to be conditions of the licence granted under that Act in respect of the place.

(3) If, in any place allowed under this section to be opened and used on Sundays for the purpose of cinematograph entertainments, any person is employed on any Sunday contrary to the conditions subject to which the place was allowed to be so opened and used, and either—

(a) it is proved—

(i) that the employment was solely due to an emergency caused by a mechanical breakdown, or to the unavoidable absence of a skilled worker due to attend on that Sunday for whom no substitute could readily have been obtained; and

(ii) that the emergency was notified, within twenty-four hours after it occurred, to the authority by whom the place is licensed under the Cinematograph Act, 1909; and

(iii) that the person employed on that Sunday contrary to the said conditions received a day's rest in lieu of that Sunday; or

(b) it is proved—

(i) that the person was employed contrary to the said conditions only by reason of his having been employed on each of the six days previous to that Sunday in connection with similar entertainments or exhibitions by an employer other than the employer who employed him on that Sunday; and

(ii) that the last-mentioned employer had, after making due inquiry, reasonable ground for believing that he had not been so employed as aforesaid;

that employment shall be deemed not to have been a contravention of the conditions subject to which the place was allowed to be so opened and used as aforesaid.

(4) In the event of a contravention of any condition subject to which a place was allowed under this section to be opened and used on Sundays for the purpose of cinematograph entertainments, the person who held the licence for that place granted under the Cinematograph Act, 1909, shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding twenty pounds, and shall, in the case of a contravention consisting of a failure to pay in accordance with the condition any sum thereby required to be paid to any authority or person, be liable to pay that sum as a debt due to that authority or person, as the case may be.

Any sum recoverable under this subsection may, if it does not exceed fifty pounds, be recovered summarily as a civil debt.

(5) This section extends to every area in which places licensed by the authority having power in that area to grant licences under the Cinematograph Act, 1909, were, within the period of twelve months ending on the sixth day of October, nineteen hundred and thirty-one, opened and used on Sundays for the purpose of cinematograph entertainments, in pursuance of arrangements purported to have been made with the authority, and shall also extend to any borough or county district to which it may be extended by an order laid before Parliament in accordance with the provisions of the Schedule to this Act, and approved by a resolution passed by each House of Parliament:

Provided that, if in any area the arrangements in pursuance of which places were so opened and used as aforesaid related only to specific occasional entertainments, then, unless and until it is extended to that area by such an order as aforesaid, this section shall extend to that area subject to the modification that the powers thereby conferred shall not be exercised with respect to more than two Sundays in any year.