43 A.2d 547 | Pa. Super. Ct. | 1945
Argued April 20, 1945.
The question for decision is whether the County Court of Allegheny County has jurisdiction under the *554
Pennsylvania Liquor Control Act of November 29, 1933, Sp. Sess., P.L. 15, as amended,
Elmer Seitz was the holder of a restaurant liquor license for the premises 3419-21 Versailles Avenue, McKeesport, and in April, 1944, he posted notices on the building 3111 Versailles Avenue advising the public that he had applied for a transfer of his license to that address, which was within 300 feet of a public school. Appellant, who lives at 3108 Versailles Avenue, and others, petitioned the local school board, which also received notice of the application directly from the Liquor Control Board, to object to the transfer, but the school board resolved to take no action. Appellant and thirty-nine others thereupon protested to the board, which held a hearing and received testimony in favor of and in opposition to the granting of the transfer before entering its order permitting Seitz' license to be used at the proposed new location. Appellant's subsequent appeal to the court below was quashed by the order which is here for review.
Section 408 (a) of the Liquor Control Act, 47 P. S. § 744-408, authorizes the board to grant transfers of licenses from one person to another or from one place to another in the same municipality, or both, and § 403, 47 P. S. § 744-403, prescribes the conditions precedent which must be met by the applicant before a transfer is warranted. Section 404, as amended by the Act of May 27, 1943, P.L. 688, 47 P. S. § 744-404, so far as now material, provides: "The board may of its own motion and shall, *555 upon the written request of any applicant . . . whose application for . . . transfer has been refused, fix a time and place for hearing of such application . . . At such hearing, the board shall present its reasons for its refusal . . . The board shall thereupon grant or refuse the . . . transfer . . . Any applicant who has appeared before the board, . . . who is aggrieved by the refusal of the board to . . . transfer a . . . restaurant . . . liquor license, may appeal within twenty days from date of refusal to . . . the county court of Allegheny County . . . Such appeal shall be upon petition of theapplicant . . . The court shall hear the application de novo at such time as it shall fix, of which notice shall be given to the board. The court shall either sustain the refusal of the board or order the issuance of the license to the applicant.There shall be no further appeal. . . ." (Italics supplied.)
It will be observed that the Liquor Control Act does not continue the provisions formerly made by §§ 3 and 7 of the Act of May 13, 1887, P.L. 108, as amended by Act of May 5, 1921, P.L. 407, for the filing of remonstrances and the hearing of remonstrants by the quarter sessions courts prior to the issuance of liquor licenses. Under the earlier laws, which imposed no limitation upon the right to appeal, this Court held that a disappointed remonstrant was a proper appellant from an order granting a license. McCabe's License,
The relationship which must exist between a person and a cause before a right to appeal will arise, in the absence of special statutory authority, has been stated as follows inLansdowne Board of Adjustment's Appeal,
Appeal dismissed. *557