43 S.E.2d 704 | Ga. | 1947
Lead Opinion
The policy of the State relating to intoxicating beverages and liquors was fixed by the act of 1938 (Ga. L. 1937-38, Ex. Sess., p. 103). It is there declared that the State Revenue Commissioner shall administer the law and that he may not revoke without cause and a hearing a license issued *560 thereunder. A municipal government, after adopting an ordinance pursuant to the State law, wherein provision is made for the sale of licenses for one year unless sooner revoked for violation of rules and regulations therein, is without power to arbitrarily and without cause discriminate between such licensees by revoking one license and not those of others who occupy exactly the same position. Accordingly, the petition, alleging the payment of $2000 to the City of Savannah for a wholesale liquor license and the arbitrary revocation of such license by the city when the licensee had violated no law or regulation under the ordinance, and seeking to enjoin the city authorities from interfering with the continued business under the license, set forth a cause of action.
The petition was amended by attaching as exhibits a copy of the ordinance of the defendant repealing section 205 of Grayson's Code of the City of Savannah, and copy of the ordinance revoking the plaintiff's license, both of which ordinances were adopted and approved by the defendant in February, 1947. The ordinance first mentioned was as follows: "Be it enacted by The Mayor and Aldermen of the City of Savannah, in council assembled, and it is hereby ordained by the authority aforesaid, that section 58-205 of the 1945 Code of the City of Savannah, constituting section 6 of an ordinance adopted May 27, 1935, is hereby repealed, said Code section applying to the authority of The Mayor and Aldermen of the City of Savannah to revoke licenses for the purpose of selling intoxicating beverages." The other ordinance was as follows: "Be it resolved by The Mayor and Aldermen of the City of Savannah in council assembled that the licenses to sell wholesale liquors in the City of Savannah for the year 1947 heretofore issued to the following named parties are hereby revoked: License No. 31. Approved December 11, 1946. Issued January 2, 1947. Issued to Savannah Distributing Co. Inc., President John A. Peters. Business address: 511 W. Hull St., wholesale liquor. Adopted and approved February 19, 1947." It was alleged that Grayson's Code of the City of Savannah of 1945, which contained the ordinance of The Mayor and Aldermen of the City of Savannah adopted and approved May 27, 1935, and embodied in sections 58-199 and following, including section 58-205, was adopted and approved by the Mayor and Aldermen of the City of Savannah, as the legal Code of the City of Savannah on March 6, 1946, which ordinance of March 6, 1946, reaffirmed and readopted all ordinances of the City of Savannah passed prior to that time, including the said ordinance of May 27, 1935, hereinbefore set out and made a part of the petition and known as sections 58-199 to 58-205, inclusive.
The plaintiff was accorded due process of law as long as section 58-205 remained a part of the ordinances and laws of the City of Savannah, but the repeal of the said ordinance by the defendant, and thereafter the proceeding to revoke the plaintiff's license, as well as the revocation thereof without notice and without cause, deprived the plaintiff of its property and its rights without due process of law within the meaning and intent of the aforesaid sections *568 of the Constitutions of Georgia and of the United States. The act of the defendant in repealing section 58-205 of Grayson's Code necessarily related back to the date of the issuance of the license to the plaintiff on January 2, 1947, and, accordingly, became an ex post facto law, in violation of the due process clause of the Constitution of this State, article 1, section 1, paragraph 3, the clause relating to ex post facto laws and impairing the obligations of contracts, article 1, section 2, paragraph 2, and the clause of the United States Constitution relating to impairing the obligation of contracts, article 1, section 10, paragraph 1. The plaintiff has received official notice from the defendant of the revocation of its license, and if it does not discontinue business, the defendant will undertake to prosecute it in the police court of Savannah or other court for doing business without a license and will continue to prosecute it from day to day. If the plaintiff should endeavor to do business, the defendant, in addition to initiating prosecution against it in the police court of Savannah, will order the marshal of the City of Savannah to close and lock up its place of business and do and perform various and other sundry acts unknown to the plaintiff to stop and interfere with it in the prosecution of its business.
The prayers were for: (a) a temporary restraining order enjoining and restraining the defendant, its servants, agents, officers, and employees from closing the plaintiff's place of business, from prosecuting it in the Police Court of Savannah, and from interfering in any way with the plaintiff's continuance of its business; (b) that a rule nisi be issued; (c) that upon the final hearing the defendant, its servants, agents, officers, and employees be permanently enjoined and restrained as prayed in (a) above and in the petition; (d) process.
The defendant demurred to the petition as amended on the grounds: (1) no cause of action is set forth against the defendant; (2) the petition as amended does not set out any matter or thing of equity or equitable jurisdiction upon which the plaintiff is entitled to any equitable relief.
When the case came on for hearing on the prayer for temporary injunction, counsel for both sides agreed in open court as follows: "This case coming on for hearing on the rule to show cause, both sides agree that the court shall decide the case on the issues raised *569 by the general demurrers. This is to control in this hearing only."
The court overruled the demurrers and granted the temporary injunction, and the defendant excepted.
1. We do not have here a case involving a change in the policy of government in relation to the sale of liquor within a city, as was dealt with in Melton v. Moultrie,
The policy of the State in dealing with intoxicating liquors was fixed by the State law. Municipalities are bound by that law and can lawfully regulate the liquor business within their corporate limits to the extent that the law specifies. The statute authorizes municipalities to designate the locations of such places of business, provided they must not be within 100 yards of any church or within 200 yards of any school ground; and to fix license fees, provided the minimums shall not be less than the amounts stated in the law; and to consider and pass upon "the character, reliability, and other qualities of fitness beforeissuing such licenses." (Italics ours.) They are also empowered to adopt "all reasonable rules and regulations as may fall within the police powers of such municipalities . . to regulate any business provided for in this act." As pointed out above, the State Revenue Commissioner is not allowed to issue licenses until the applicant has exhibited a license from the municipality or county.
The obvious intent of the law is that the local licensing authorities shall have and exercise wide discretionary power in the approval of all applications for licenses, in order that the good character and reliability of such applicants in the community where they are best known may be found to exist before any license is issued. The State refuses to act until this important functions of the local government has been performed and evidenced by the license issued to such applicant. The lawmakers were undoubtedly acquainted with the inherent evils attending the traffic in intoxicating liquors, and by the provisions of this act sought to afford protection to the public by insuring that until the applicants be thus found to possess good character and reliability they not be permitted to engage in the business. Surely all rules by whatever authority adopted for the regulation and control of the liquor business are intended to serve as instruments for the attainment of this high aim. It would be a rank injustice to those who qualify by meeting this rigid test to allow the authority that had, in the performance of a duty and power conferred by the law, found them to possess these requisites, accepted the required fee, and issued its license for one year, revocable only for cause, as provided by the ordinance, to immediately thereafter, without notice and without cause, arbitrarily revoke the license, thus depriving the licensee of his money, his business, and his lawful means of livelihood. Such *572 arbitrary action can not be sustained as an exercise of the police power. The law expressly limits the exercise of the police power to "reasonable rules and regulations" that may fall within this power. It is neither a "rule" nor a "regulation," nor is it reasonable and within the police power of the municipality of Savannah to revoke without cause the license here involved after it had shortly theretofore accepted the sum of $2000 from the licensee, which it had found possessed the quality of character and reliability requisite to a license. As will be pointed out hereinafter, even the exercise of the police power has its limit. It ends precisely where no reason for its exercise begins. It does not empower government needlessly and without cause, but simply for the purpose of inflicting injury upon an unoffending person, to revoke the license of such person issued by such government to carry on a lawful business. The State government did not retain for itself any such arbitrary power in the administration of this law. On the contrary, it expressly prevented the State Revenue Commissioner from revoking without a hearing and cause a license which the Commissioner had issued and for which the State received a fee. Whatever evils the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors may inflict upon the public, the arbitrary revocation of a license, for which the government issuing the same received a fee of $2000 from the applicant, is neither an effective nor a fair method of avoiding such evils. If, after notice and a hearing, the government desiring to cancel a license is unable to find the existence of a cause for such revocation, the licensee must evidently be worthy of continuing in business.
The City of Savannah adopted an ordinance in harmony with the State law, which provided for the issuance of a wholesale liquor license upon the payment of $2000, and that such license should issue for one year, unless sooner revoked because of a violation of the rules and regulations therein set forth. The ordinance also required that before such revocation the licensee should have notice and a hearing. The section providing for notice and a hearing was repealed by the city council at the same meeting at which the license here involved was revoked, and the licensee complains here of the action of the council in repealing that portion of the ordinance. Since the remaining portions of the ordinance provide that the license may be revoked for stated causes, it is unnecessary *573
for us to rule upon whether or not the action of the council in repealing the section providing for notice and a hearing was lawful. Under the ordinance as it stands, after the repeal of the section referred to, the license issued to the defendant in error was good for one year unless revoked for cause. In Purvis v.Ocilla,
But the City of Savannah contends that it had a right to thus arbitrarily revoke the license in the exercise of its police power. In 30 Am. Jur. 279, § 42, it is said: "The police power of the State, like other governmental authority, is to be used for the common welfare, impartially and without unjust discrimination; and while, as between the selling of liquor and other callings less *574 harmful to the public, the former may be discriminated against, there is no warrant for unjust discrimination as between individuals engaged in the same business, and this is true especially where the right to sell liquor is recognized by the Constitution." While the sale of liquor is not expressly recognized by the State Constitution, it is so recognized by the State law. Under the principle above stated, there was no warrant for discrimination as between the respective wholesale dealers. In 16 C. J. S. 562, § 195, it is said: "No exercise of the police power can override the demands of natural justice." At page 564 in the same volume, it is said: "The legislature may not exercise the police power for private purposes, nor for the exclusive benefit of particular individuals or classes." Again at page 582, it is said: "The police power, however, may not be resorted to as a cloak for the invasion of personal rights guaranteed by the various constitutions."
The petitioner invokes the equal-protection clause of the Constitution, article 1, section 1, paragraph 2, and contends that this constitutional guaranty was impinged by the discriminatory action of the city council in arbitrarily revoking the petitioner's license while at the same time permitting a number of other wholesale licensees, occupying precisely the same position, to continue in business under the city licenses. The equal-protection clause of the Constitution affords no protection to a mere privilege. Schlesinger v. Atlanta,
Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur, except Jenkins,C. J., Bell, and Atkinson, JJ., who dissent.
Dissenting Opinion
The act of the General Assembly (Ga. L. 1937-38, Ex. Sess., p. 103) legalizing and controlling the sale of alcoholic beverages and liquor expressly provides by section 19 thereof as follows: "Nothing in this act contained shall be construed as giving any persons a right to sell spirituous liquors as herein defined, but the manufacture, sale, and distribution of spirituous liquors is declared to be a privilege in this State and not a right." This principle has been the established and expressed policy of this State for more than half a century. It has been stated and reiterated by this court many times. One of the plainest and most incisive statements of this principle may be found in Ison v. Griffin,
(a) This court has held at least twice that the equal-protection clauses of the State and Federal Constitutions protect rights alone, and have no reference to mere concessions or privileges, which may be bestowed or withheld by the State or municipality at will, Schlesinger v. Atlanta,
(b) Since the city authorities had the legal right and power to revoke the license of the plaintiff, as they did, the plaintiff could not invalidate such revocation as to it by showing that the licenses of other dealers in similar situation were not also revoked.
The foregoing deals with the more important contentions of the plaintiff. We have also examined its remaining contentions and consider them without merit.