Normally this is the type of thing that you would expect seasoned, legally trained prosecutors and judges to notice, but see if you can figure out what went wrong in the prosecution of a restaurant owner in Jeollanam-do recently.

A court has ruled that it is not a crime to provide alcohol to teenagers if it is not in exchange for money.

On the 12th Judge Kim Kwang-yong of the Jeonju District Courts first criminal division overturned the conviction of 52-year-old Mr. Lee, who had been fined 700,000 won in a summary prosecution for providing alcohol to teenagers in violation of the law on the protection of teenagers and children.

The judge explained that “the court finds that at the time of the incident the defendant was providing free alcohol to promote his restaurant, and provided teenagers with food and also alcohol, which they drank, and the law against providing alcohol for free will not be in effect until September of next year.”

Mr. Lee provided the alcohol to 17-year-old Kim and another teenager at his restaurant in Jeongeup, a city in Jeollanam-do, and brought an appeal as soon as he was indicted.

Kim and the other teenager took advantage of Mr. Lee being busy with dishwashing and closing up the restaurant to open a refrigerator and take two bottles of soju and four bottles of beer.

But of course, the headline for this is not “prosecutor and judge fail to check calendar”, or even, considering the final paragraph, “baseless prosecution laughed out of court”, but rather “court rules it is not illegal to give minors free alcohol”.