This is a dispute between a bar, Pro’s Sports Bar & Grill (“Pro’s”), and the City of Country Club Hills (the “City”) over a liquor license. Pro’s claims that it was given the standard liquor license for bars in Country Club Hills. The City claims that the bar was given a license that allows it to operate only with more restricted hours than is typical. The license initially given to Pro’s made no mention of an hours restriction. After the City reissued the license with the restricted hours and began enforcing them — without a hearing or a vote by the city council — Pro’s brought a claim against the City under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging a violation of both its procedural due process rights and its right to equal protection. Pro’s then moved for a preliminary injunction prohibiting the City from enforcing the limited hours. The district court found that Pro’s was likely to prevail on its due process claim (but not its equal protection claim) 1 and faced irreparable harm if forced to continue operating under the more limited hours. The district courted granted the preliminary injunction. The City appeals. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm the district court’s decision.
I. Background
Pro’s is located at 18601 South Cicero Avenue, in the City of Country Club Hills, a southern suburb of Chicago. Tharon Bradley, Carla Nelson, and Patricia Nelson, the owners of Pro’s, are also plaintiffs in this litigation. The City of Country Club Hills is governed by an elected may- or, an elected clerk, and ten elected aider-men (two from each of the City’s five wards). The mayor, Dwight Welch, and the clerk, Deborah Mcllvain, are named as defendants, along with the City itself.
To obtain a liquor license in Country Club Hills, a business must apply and satisfy certain preliminary requirements. The applicant must then secure from the city council an ordinance granting that particular business a license. The municipal code in Country Club Hills defines several types of liquor licenses, two of which are relevant here: Class A, for restaurants, and Class B, for bars. The code also sets the permissible hours of operation for these establishments. Both Class A and Class B licenses allow the holder to remain open until 2 a.m., Monday through Friday, and 3 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday.
Pro’s satisfied the application requirements for a liquor license, and the city council considered an ordinance to grant Pro’s a license on November 26, 2007. The parties dispute what took place at this meeting. Helpfully, the meeting was videotaped. The district court viewed this video and summarized it in its written opinion granting the preliminary injunction.
Thirty-nine minutes into the meeting, the council turned to the “Economic Development” portion of its agenda, the only item being whether to pass an ordinance granting Pro’s a liquor license. Alderman Tyrone Hutson, one of the aldermen for Ward 3, where Pro’s is located, was granted the floor. He did not immediately introduce the proposed ordinance, however. Instead, he began by explaining that he wished to “amend the ordinance, and place a time frame on the liquor license.” He proposed limiting the hours of alcohol sales to 11 p.m. on weekdays and 12:30 a.m. on weekends. At Mayor Welch’s direction, Hutson introduced the amendment via mo *869 tion. Hutson called for a vote, but Welch stated that a discussion of the amendment must occur first. Welch spoke for about three minutes about the license process generally, then observed that Pro’s was surrounded by residential zoning. Welch said that he did not have a problem with the hours proposed by Hutson and emphasized that Pro’s license, like all other licenses, would last only until May 1 of the following year, at which time it would need to be renewed. He indicated that he traditionally defers on decisions related to liquor licenses to the aldermen from the particular ward where the business is to be located and asked “Tom” if he had “anything to say.” “Tom” is not identified in the video but was presumably Thomas Co-mein, the other alderman from Ward 3. He agreed with proposed hours and said that if there was a problem, the police would take care of it.
Another alderman, Vincent Lockett, suggested moving the weekday closing time to 11:30 p.m. so that patrons would not have to leave before sporting events, such as Monday Night Football, had ended. Welch opposed the change, saying that just because the bar had to stop serving liquor did not mean that patrons had to leave. 2 Welch then said, seemingly to someone in the crowd, “You guys good with that? All right. All right. Let’s move on.”
No vote was taken on the amendment. Instead, after Welch directed the council to “move on,” Hutson introduced, by motion, the original ordinance, a draft of which had been prepared before the council meeting. Hutson introduced it as “an ordinance providing for the granting of a Class A liquor license” to Pro’s. The motion received a second. Welch called for discussion and an unidentified alderman asked whether the original or amended ordinance was being considered. Welch responded:
This is amended, but we are going to have to put this, I talked to our city attorney, we’ll have to put this into a formal ordinance at the next council meeting, but I’m going to give them permission to go ahead and proceed, as the Liquor Commissioner, based on the Council’s action tonight.
Welch then proceeded to a roll call, and all ten alderman voted in favor.
The council next met in December of 2007, but did not revisit Pro’s liquor license. An ordinary Class A liquor license — with no mention of the restricted hours — was issued to Pro’s. Bradley, one of the owners, obtained this license from the clerk, Mellvain, on January 4, 2008. However, a new “Class A-l” liquor license was “reissued” on January 8, 2008, signed by Mellvain and Welch. Like the original “Class A” license, the “Class A-l” license does not mention any time limitations on the service of alcohol. The municipal code does not have any provision describing a Class A-l license.
At the preliminary injunction hearing, Mellvain testified that she was uncertain why she “reissued” the license to Pro’s, but speculated that she did so in anticipation of an ordinance that would have created a Class A-l license with the limited hours discussed at the November 2007 council meeting. No such ordinance was ever adopted. However, the owners of Pro’s claim that a police officer subsequently showed them the first page of a draft ordinance that purports to establish such a classification. Pro’s alleges that the *870 police began enforcing these time limitations, resulting in several citations, arrests of management, and frequent visits by the police to Pro’s at or shortly before the new closing time. Bradley testified that this resulted in lost business and revenues, identifying in particular the refund of fees to those who had booked private parties that were terminated early by police and lost bookings to other bars in the City that could remain open later.
In March of 2008, the city council entertained a motion to extend Pro’s hours to those of a regular license holder. That ordinance did not pass, receiving five votes in support and five votes against.
Pro’s applied for a new license prior to May 1, 2008, as all licensees were required to do. Pro’s applied for a Class B license, apparently at the direction of Welch. When Pro’s received its new Class B license, it stated the following limitation:
This Liquor License is hereby Granted to Pro’s Sports Bar & Grill to Sell/Dispense Liquor in the City of Country Club Hills, until 11:30 pm Sunday through Thursday, and until 12:80 pm 3 Friday and Saturday....
These new hours were not voted on by the city council, and are not the hours that were discussed at the November 26, 2007 meeting. At the preliminary injunction hearing, Mcllvain testified that when she receives an application for liquor license renewal, she first confirms that the establishment’s dram shop insurance is still valid and then issues a new one-year license with the same terms and conditions that the establishment’s previous license had contained.
Pro’s filed the instant litigation on October 21, 2008, seeking damages and an injunction under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. On October 31, 2008, Pro’s moved for a preliminary injunction. After a preliminary injunction hearing on December 8 and 9, 2008, the district court concluded that Pro’s was likely to prevail on its due process claim and issued the injunction. The City now appeals.
II. Analysis
On appeal from the grant of a preliminary injunction, we review the district court’s legal rulings de novo, its factual determinations for clear error, and its balancing of the factors for an abuse of discretion.
See United Air Lines, Inc. v. Air Line Pilots Ass’n, Int’l,
The Fourteenth Amendment prohibits states from depriving a person of “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” This prohibition applies with equal force to municipalities.
See Home Tel & Tel. Co. v. City of Los Angeles,
Once granted, an Illinois liquor license is a form of property within the meaning of the due process clause.
See Club Misty, Inc. v. Laski,
Determining the nature of Pro’s original license is a matter of statutory interpretation and thus a question of law that we review de novo.
Tammi v. Porsche Cars N. Am., Inc.,
The original proposed ordinance would have granted Pro’s a Class A liquor license without additional restrictions. The version signed by the mayor and clerk is identical. Under Illinois law “the official acts of municipal corporations must be recorded and the records are the only lawful evidence of the action to which they refer.”
See Western Sand & Gravel Co. v. Town of Cornwall,
The City advances two different but related arguments to contest the straightforward language of the ordinance. First, the City argues that the signed ordinance does not reflect the city council’s action on November 26, 2007 because of a scrivener’s error. Rather than adopt the proposed ordinance, the City maintains, the council adopted an amended ordinance with limited hours. In the alternative, the City suggests that we interpret the ordinance based on the intent of the council, which it argues was to impose an hours restriction on Pro’s.
Because there was never a vote on Alderman Hutson’s proposed amendment— indeed, the ordinance had not yet been introduced at the time the amendment was discussed — the City relies on Mayor Welch’s comments before the roll call vote to establish that the council voted on the amended ordinance. However, Welch’s comments were at best ambiguous, if not actually contradictory. He first stated, “This is amended,” but went on to say, ‘We’ll have to put this into a formal ordinance at the next council meeting.” The City argues that the mayor meant only that the clerk would have to change the text of the ordinance so that its language reflected the time limitations, but that would not require action at the next council meeting. It is unclear how the amendment could take effect without a vote. Thus, it appears that the published ordinance accurately reflects the proceedings before the city council on November 26, 2007.
It is true that we have previously refused to hold a city to a scrivener’s error in the published version of a municipal ordinance.
See Christ Universal Mission Church v. City of Chicago,
We also decline the City’s invitation to rewrite the ordinance so that it conforms to its characterization of the council’s intent. If “the statutory language is clear and unambiguous, then there is no need to resort to other aids of construction.”
Carter v. Tennant Co.,
Having established a property interest, Pro’s must still show that it has been deprived of that property without due process of law. Pro’s did not receive a pre-deprivation hearing or any of the other protections of the revocation process.
See
235 ILCS 5/7-1 to 7-14. We have previously held that denying renewal to a liquor license holder without a hearing or other adjudication violates due process.
Club Misty, Inc.,
The City acknowledges that Pro’s did not receive any sort of hearing when its hours were curtailed. Instead, relying on
Veterans Legal Defense Fund v. Schwartz,
Finally, we find no abuse of discretion in the district court’s balancing of the preliminary injunction factors. A preliminary injunction requires both a showing of irreparable injury and a likelihood of success on the merits.
Hoosier Energy Rural Elec. Co-op., Inc. v. John Hancock Life Ins. Co.,
III. Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, we AffiRM the district court’s grant of a preliminary injunction.