33 Neb. 366 | Neb. | 1891
On the 11th day of April, 1890, M. Y. Corey, the appellee, filed in the office of the city clerk of the city of Harvard his petition for license to sell malt, spirituous and vinous liquors in the first ward of said city, for the municipal year ending April 30,1891. On the date fixed in the notice for hearing the application the appellants filed with said clerk a remonstrance against the issuance of the license. By agreement of parties the matter was heard April 30, when, after hearing the testimony, the city council overruled the remonstrance and granted the license. An appeal was taken by the remonstrants to the district court, where the decision of the city council was affirmed.
The case is before us on appeal. It is a question whether, in the absence of a statutory enactment providing for appeals from the district court to the supreme court in proceedings like this, the proper remedy is not by petition in error; but, as the appellee has not filed a motion to dismiss, we will not now decide the point.
The petition, when filed, was signed by thirty-four persons claiming to be resident freeholders of the first ward of the city of Harvard. A notice of the filing of the' same was published in the Harvard Courier for more than two weeks prior to the date named for the hearing. After the notice was given, and the remonstrance was filed, the council allows the petitioner to amend his petition by permitting Let "Webster, L. L. Chambers, and Catherine Douse to sign their names to the application. The appellants claim that the council had no jurisdiction to act upon the petition thus amended, for the reason no notice was given of the amendment. This cannot be. The council acquired jurisdiction by the filing of a proper petition and the giving of the notice required by the provisions of section 2 of chapter 50 of the Compiled Statutes, and having once obtained jurisdiction, they did not lose it by allowing
The case of Pelton v. Drummond, 21 Neb., 495, cited by appellants, is not in conflict with the views above expressed. It was there ruled that the authorities have no power to take any action on a petition for a liquor license until the statutory notice has been given. We adhere to the rule there stated, but whether such notice must be republished after new names are added to the petition was not involved nor considered in the precedent cited.
The petition was signed by the requisite number of qualified petitioners. It bore the names, of thirty-seven persons, counting the three names which were added. It was admitted on the trial that G. W. Updike and W. R. Martin were non-residents of the city of Harvard. It also appears that A. L. Kaufman was not a freeholder, and that Miles Wilson, A. A. Keller, and Conrad Miller, who signed the petition, filed a written request withdrawing as petitioners. The undisputed testimony shows that all the other signers were qualified petitioners, so that after deducting the six names mentioned, there remained thirty-one signers, who were resident freeholders of the first ward
The remonstrance alleges that M. Y. Corey had violated the law during the preceding year by selling liquors to minors. Section 8 of said chapter 50 prohibits the sale of malt, spirituous, and vinous liquors, or any intoxicating drinks, to any minor under twenty-one years of age, and section 3 of the same chapter provides that “If it shall be satisfactorily proven that the applicant for license has been guilty of the violation of any of the provisions of this act within the space of one year, or if any former license shall have been revoked for any misdemeanor against the laws of this state, then the board shall refuse to issue such license.”
The testimony of Frank Gill, a minor seventeen years old, is to the effect that he obtained a glass of beer at Corey’s saloon, either of Mr. Corey or of his bartender, Miller, on Christmas night preceding the hearing before the city council. There is also testimony tending to prove that one Sherman Dunn, a minor, bought and drank intoxicating liquors at appellee’s saloon within a year prior to April 30, 1890. M. Y. Corey denies under oath, that either Gill or Dunn procured liquor at his place of business to his knowledge. "William Miller, the bartender, testified that he could not say whether he sold any beer, whisky, or liquor to Gill or not, but he fails to deny making the sale to Dunn. The testimony is not conflicting. The positive testimony of the witnesses produced by the remonstrators, as to liquors being procured in appellee’s saloon by Gill and Dunn, not having been denied by Miller, who tended bar, the charge of selling liquors is well supported by the evidence, and, for that reason, the license should have been denied.
Another ground of the remonstrance was that the petitioner violated the law by selling adulterated liquors. The disposing of such liquors, by gift or sale, is forbidden by section 13 of the liquor law.
Q. Now you say there was fusel-oil in it. Is not that an incident of distillation?
A. It is one of the products of distillation. It is especially in all crude whisky, it is found in large proportions .in raw whisky, and also in high wines. It gradually disappears by aging of the whisky. In double-distilled goods there should be none.
Q,. In redistillation, they take it out, do they not?
A. If the distillation is stopped at the right time, there would be none.
Q,. Then all whiskies, except of the redistilled grade, have fusel-oil in them?
A. Yes; the first distillation would have fusel-oil.
Q,. Was the quantity of fusel-oil in this sample that you •analyzed, such as to lead you to suppose it had been introduced, or that it was as it came from the process of distillation ?
A. I should think it was from the process of distillation; I should think it was as it came from the still.
The witness further testified that the sample given him for analysis had been thinned by water; that sugar was ■not to be found in pure whisky, and that fusel-oil was poisonous. It was the opinion of the chemist that the liquor had been adulterated.
It is stated in brief of counsel for appellants that there was no law in force in the city of Harvard granting authority to the mayor and council to grant the license. This question was not raised by the remonstrance nor by the evidence, and will not be considered here. Parties protesting against the granting of a license must fairly present their objections to the council. The question of authority not having been made before the city council, it was not necessary to put in evidence the ordinances of the city authorizing the granting of license to saloon-keepers.
Complaint is also made by appellants in the brief of counsel that the findings of the district court areinsuffi-. cient. Whether the judgment was based upon sufficient findings or not is immaterial, the case being here on appeal upon the merits. Appellants recognized the validity of the judgment by appealing.
The order of the city council granting the appellee a license and the judgment of the district court affirming the same are reversed, the remonstrance is sustained, and the application for a license is denied.
Judgment accordingly.