A YORK guesthouse is to go dry, after its owner appeared before magistrates charged with having the wrong alcohol in a spirits bottle.

Anthony Dodds, 61, of Holgate Bridge Hotel, told York magistrates he had never been in trouble with the authorities in 30 years of holding an alcohol licence and had never sold spirits at its bar.

Today he faces a £694 bill for the prosecution costs after he pleaded guilty for offering spirits for sale with a misleading label.

He was also conditionally discharged for 12 months.

Matthew Boxall, prosecuting for City of York Council, told magistrates that Dodds had committed an offence because he had not checked that the alcohol was genuine.

The trading standards officer said that his colleagues bought a sample from a bottle labelled Carta Blanca Rum Ron Bacardi during a visit to the hotel on April 15, 2003.

A public analyst discovered the sample was not the drink advertised on the label.

Dodds told the court he would not renew the alcohol licence for his bed and breakfast hotel in Holgate Road.

"It is going to be totally alcohol-free," he said. "I am sorry for any trouble I have caused. I cannot understand how it happened. I was out of the country at the time."

He believed that officers from York's food and safety unit visited because a customer complained that the bar was not open.

He had never sold any spirits from it. The only sales were lager or beer if guests wanted a drink in the evening, as he did not provide evening meals, and the bar closed at 9pm to prevent customers getting drunk and awakening other guests.

"I have never done anything wrong in my career in the bed and breakfast trade," said Dodds.

He told trading standards officers that the alcohol must have been in the bottle since before he took the hotel over in 2001.

Dodds said that as soon as he heard about the wrong alcohol, he had ordered a 78-year-old employee to throw the bottle away and buy a genuine, one.

The bar was "a hole in the wall", with a few bottles and a fridge in the corner.

Updated: 08:36 Friday, July 02, 2004