Petitioner was arrested for the commission of an alleged misdemeanor, namely, the violation of an ordinance of the city of Los Angeles, No. 39,600 (new series). This ordinance is a rather complex piece of municipal legislation, the numerous sections or subdivisions of which attempt an elaborate classification of various businesses or callings as a basis for the imposition of an occupation tax, differing in amount in the case of different businesses. The precise offense charged against petitioner consisted in conducting, managing and carrying on the business of a retail grocer in the city of Los Angeles without paying the tax upon said business prescribed by the ordinance. Retail grocers are not specifically mentioned in any provisions of the ordinance and they are, therefore, governed by the provisions of section 153 of the ordinance. This section contains an omnibus provision imposing upon “every person, firm or corporation, conducting, managing or carrying on any business, whether as a merchant, manufacturer or otherwise, not otherwise specifically licensed by other sections of this ordinance, the gross annual receipts of which business amount to less than six thousand dollars ($6,000),” a tax of $1.50 per quarter of a year, and thereafter sets forth a graduated scale indicating the amount of license tax to be paid upon businesses whose gross annual receipts amount to sums falling within the classes therein specified. Petitioner’s gross receipts during 1919 *704 were thirty thousand dollars. He failed to pay the license tax provided by the ordinance for the quarter commencing July 1, 1920, and terminating September 30, 1920, and has been arrested pursuant to a provision of the ordinance making the conduct of a business without paying the required license tax a misdemeanor. Petitioner claims that the ordinance in question, or at least so much of it as is applied against him, is null and void.
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The question being one of intent, this presumption is, of course, not irrebuttable, and it is possible to conceive of circumstances which would suffice to indicate that the words “license and regulate” were used in a sense other than that which has been accorded to them by this court. No such circumstance or combination of circumstances has been called to our attention by petitioner. It is, indeed, contended that the fact that the legislature amended the general laws in 1901 so as to forbid municipalities not operating under freeholders’ charters to impose license taxes for the purpose of revenue only indicates a change of policy which should be reflected in a change in the construction of the expression to “license and regulate.” This argument obviously has no weight when applied to the interpretation of freeholders’ charters, and, moreover, this court has re-enunciated its former interpretation of the words in question in Ex parte Braun, supra, a ease decided subsequent to the amendment of the general laws.
Petitioner makes several additional arguments based upon the provisions of the charter. In this behalf, our attention is directed to the fact that no limit is placed upon the amount of the license tax authorized. In the light of the legislative policy to jealously safeguard all exercise of the taxing power, a policy exemplified in the charter itself by a limitation upon the amount of the tax which may be levied and collected upon real and personal property, it is argued that this failure to place a limit upon the license tax authorized by the charter indicates that it was intended to restrict the power to impose the said license tax so as to prevent its use for revenue purposes. The very fact, however, that an inflexible limit is placed upon the amount of revenue which may be raised by real and personal property taxes lends force to respondent’s "suggestion that some other source of revenue must have been contemplated by the people. Moreover, the charter provides that the law imposing the license tax shall be general and uniform in its operation and that no discrimination *707 in the amount of the tax shall be made between persons engaged in the same business otherwise than in proportioning the tax to the amount of business done. In view of this safeguard, we cannot say that there is such danger of uncontrolled legislation upon the subject as to reasonably require a construction limiting the effect of this portion of the charter as contended by petitioner.
Petitioner next relies upon certain principles of statutory construction, namely, that the express inclusion of one thing is tantamount to the exclusion of another, and that the meaning of a word may be ascertained by reference to the meaning of words associated with it. It is insisted that the application of these maxims requires that subdivision 21 of section 2 of article I of the charter be interpreted as a restriction to the power to regulate, for the reason that the latter portion of the subdivision refers expressly to the regulation and suppression of certain occupations which are in themselves noisome or unhealthful. We do not think that these maxims are to be so applied. Indeed, the very fact that the opening provisions of the subdivision refer to all lawful businesses and callings and use words well recognized as expressing an authorization to tax for revenue purposes, while the closing provisions refer to businesses noisome or unhealthful in themselves and contain words apt to authorize control and prohibition, indicates clearly that the subdivision deals with two separate and distinct matters, namely, the taxation of all lawful businesses and the police control of all noisome or unhealthful businesses. Neither provision can be construed to exclude or absorb the other.
*708 of the state of California.” We cannot so construe them without doing plain and obvious violence to the charter. The only basis for petitioner’s contention that there was an intent to render the charter subordinate to state-wide laws on the subject is the use of the adjective “general,” which is often used to describe state-wide laws. The significance of this fact is very slight, indeed, when we consider that the obvious purpose of the charter was to safeguard the exercise of the taxing power by forbidding discriminatory laws, and that in this connection the words “general” and “uniform,” as applied to laws, have a well-defined and generally accepted meaning as antithetical to “special” or discriminatory laws. That the word “general” was used in this sense is further indicated by the use of the correlated adjective “uniform.” The words “general and uniform laws” as used in the charter as amended would certainly be interpreted 'by the average person as referring, not to state-wide laws, but to the enactment of laws or ordinances by the legislative body of the city. We can see no good reason for adopting a different or more technical interpretation.
Our conclusion is that, not only does the charter not prohibit, but it expressly authorizes, the imposition of a tax upon petitioner’s business for the purpose of raising revenue.
We proceed, next, to a consideration of petitioner’s contention that the ordinance is unlawfully discriminatory in its operation and effect and is in other respects unreasonable.
We need only mention, in passing, the contention that the ordinance is uncertain in that section 153 imposes a license tax upon all persons conducting, managing or carrying on any business, whether as a “merchant, manufacturer, or otherwise,” without defining more specifically the business included. Petitioner has answered this objection himself. He concedes in his reply brief that, had the section referred to merchants and manufacturers only, it would have been sufficiently certain, while he demonstrates in his opening brief that such, in fact, is the precise interpretation which is to be placed upon the section.
Petitioner has, consequently, no ground for complaint on account of his imprisonment because of his violation of the ordinance in question, and the writ is accordingly discharged.
Olney, J., Shaw, J., Wilbur, J., Sloane, J., Lawlor, J., and Angellotti, C. J., concurred.