13 F. 229 | U.S. Cir. Ct. | 1882
in delivering the opinion of the Court, said:
The question presented is, the validity of the ordinance in requiring for the issue of a license to “establish, maintain or carry on” a laundry within the limits mentioned, the recommendation of twelve citizens and tax-payers in the block in which the laundry is to be “established, maintained or carried on.” The ordinance in terms covers all laundries, whether used for the separate wants of a family or for the washing of clothes of others for hire. We shall assume, however, that it has reference only to laundries of the latter class. It is directed equally against those who establish them, those who maintain them, and those who carry them on. If the recommendation. of any parties in the block can be required as a condition of granting the license for either of these purposes, the number is a matter of discretion with the supervisors. They may require the recommendation of double or treble the number designated; they may exact the unanimous recommendation of the citizens and tax-payers of the block. Nor need they confine the recommendation required to citizens and tax-payers; any other class may be equally designated. They may require it of some of our worthy resident aliens from Europe—gentlemen of Irish or German nativity. Indeed, if they can make the exercise of their legislative power in the granting of licenses dependent upon the approval of anybody else, they may place the approval with whomsoever they may deem best, and no one can control their action.
They have the power, by the act of April 25, 1863, “to prohibit, and suppress, or exclude from certain limits, or to regulate, all occupations, houses, places, pastimes, amusements, exhibitions and practices, which are against good morals, contrary to public order and decency, or dangerous to the public safety.”. But the business of a laundry—that is, the washing of clothing and cloths of various kinds, and ironing or pressing them to a condition to be used—is not of itself against good
The supervisors are, it is true, empowered by the act of March 3, 1872, to “license and regulate all such callings, trades and employments, as the public good may require to be licensed and regulated, and as are not prohibited by law,” but their power cannot be delegated by them to others, or its exercise made dependent upon others’ consent. The power of legislation vested in them is a public trust, which can only be executed in consonance with the general purposes of the municipality, and in subornation to the general laws and policy of the State. Their ordinances must be reasonable—that is, not oppressive, nor unequal, nor unjust in their operation, or they will not be upheld. Such is the well established doctrine with respect to the legislation of municipal bodies. In ex parte Frank, it was applied by the Supreme Court of California to an ordinance passed by the supervisors, under the act in question, exacting a license for selling goods, and fixing a different rate where the goods were within the corporate limits or in transitu to the city, and where the goods were without the city and not in transitu to it. The ordinance was held to be unjust, oppressive, unequal and partial, and, for these reasons, as well as because it was in restraint of trade between the city and the interior of the State, was adjudged to be void. The decision of the Court was accompanied by some very just observations upon the limitations to the exercise of legislative power in the passage of ordinances by municipal bodies. 52 Cal., 606.
Licenses for callings, trades and employments may be required by the supervisors where the nature of the business demands special knowledge or qualifications on the part of the party, as in the case of dealers in drugs. They may also be required as a means of raising revenue for municipal purposes. But in neither case can they be required as a means of prohibiting any of the avocations of life which are not injurious to public morals, nor offensive to the senses, nor dangerous to the public health and safety. Nor can conditions be annexed to their issue which would tend to such a prohibition. The exaction, for any such purposg, of a license to pursue an avocation of this nature, or making its issue dependent upon con
Prisoner discharged.