5 Ga. App. 750 | Ga. Ct. App. | 1908
Lead Opinion
The plaintiff in error was convicted in the recorder’s court of the violation of what is called in the record the “locker ordinance.” This ordinance is as follows: “Be it ordained b3 the Mayor and Council of the City of Macon, and it is hereby ordained by the authority of same: Section 1. That it shall be unlawful for any club, corporation, or association of persons, or number of persons, in this city, whether incorporated or otherwise, to keep or to permit to be kept, in any room or place, or in any place connected therewith directly or indirectly, in which the members of such club, corporation, association of persons or number of persons assemble or frequent, any
The case was submitted to the recorder’s court upon the following agreed statement of facts: “The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks of the United States of America was organized in the city of New York in May, 1868, and, since its organization, has been in continuous existence throughout the United States. Beginning as a voluntary fraternal association, lodges of the order were organized in various cities in various States of the Union, which lodges created and established, by mutual consent and voluntary allegiance, a supreme governing body of the order, known and designated as the Grand Lodge of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks of the United States of America, and, as such fraternal order, was incorporated by an act of the Senate and Assembly of the State of New York, on March 10, 1871. On June 19th, 1895, said Order of Elks filed articles of incorporation in the District of Columbia, pursuant to the laws of the United States, providing for the filing of such articles of incorporation by fraternal associations. The objects of said Order of Elks are, to inculcate the principles of charity, justice, brotherly love and fidelity, to promote the welfare and enhance the happiness of its members, to quicken the spirit of American patriotism, to cultivate good fellowship, and to perpetuate itself as a fraternal organization. By its laws it is provided that a subordinate lodge of the order may establish and maintain a club for the social enjoyment of its members, bearing the name of the order, and subject to the limitations and restrictions provided by the laws of the order, and it is provided by its laws that the membership of ■such club shall be limited exclusively to members in good standing in the lodge establishing and maintaining such club, and that
“On the 4th day of February, 1908, the said Macon Lodge No. 230 of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks of the United States of America, having theretofore caused said Elks Club t» be registered with the ordinary of Bibb county, and paid to the tax-collector of said Bibb county $500.00 for special tax as required by the law of Georgia, did permit members of its said Elks Club, which membership is limited exclusively to members in good standing in said lodge, to keep in a room and place forming a part of and connected directly with the aforesaid leased premises of said Macon Lodge and its club, on the 7th floor of said Grand Building in the city of Macon, in which the members of said lodge and club are accustomed to assemble, alcoholic, spirituous, malt, or intoxicating liquors, or intoxicating bitters, or other drinks which, if drunk to excess, will produce intoxication. And certain members of said lodge and club, pursuant to said permission, did on the date aforesaid keep such liquors, bitters, and drinks in the place aforesaid for their own private use and control. The defendant knew of, and, as a member of said lodge, took part in granting, and assented to the grant of said permission, and has knowledge that some members availed themselves of said permission. Such liquors were the private personal property of each member of said lodge and club who saw fit to keep them, by the permission aforesaid, in the premises leased, occupied, and controlled by said lodge and club as aforesaid, and were so kept as to be readily identified and distinguished as the individual property of the member placing same there. No such liquors or bitters were sold or permitted to be sold or kept for sale in or about said club and lodge quarters, either directly or indirectty, bjr any persons to an}*- person. On the date aforesaid, when
The recorder found the plaintiff in error guilty, and he excepted, by certiorari ‘to the superior court. Upon the hearing the certiorari was dismissed. In the petition for certiorari error is assigned upon the ground that the ordinance passed by the Mayor and Council of the City of Macon, for the violation of which the petitioner was convicted, is unconstitutional, illegal, and void: (a) Because the Mayor and Council of the City of Macon had no corporate or charter right, power, or authority to pass said ordinance, and the State has not granted such power to said municipal corporation; nor is the power to pass said ordinance incident to any power which has been granted to said municipal corporation. (&) Because said ordinance is contrary tto the public policy of the State of 'Georgia, as shown by the laws of the State duly enacted, and seeks to take from the petitioner and his associates ■and fellow citizens a right expressly granted by the State in section 47 of the general tax act, approved August 22, 1907 (Acts of 1907, p. 35). (c) The ordinance seeks to take from the State the power to raise revenue, (d) The State, by general law, has regulated places where, and upon what conditions, intoxicating liquors may be kept, and has levied and provided for the collection of a tax upon every club, corporation, or association of persons who shall keep or permit to be kept any intoxicating liquors in any place connected directly or indirectly with any room or place in which the members of such club, corporation, or association .assemble or frequent. And the said municipal corporation has no power, right, or authority to prohibit the keeping of intoxicating liquors in. conformity to the, general law of the State, and has no power, right, or authority to amend or annul the said general law of the State. (e) The ordinance is not a reasonable exercise of police power of said municipal corporation, and the right to pass the aforesaid ordinance is not within the police power granted to said municipal corporation by the State; and there is
There is nothing in the agreed statement of facts to show that the Elks Club room at Macon was other than a private place. Clearly, then, this club would come under the provision's of paragraph 47 of section 2 of the tax act of 1907 (Acts of 1907, p. 35), unless the Mayor and Council of the City of Macon has power to supersede, exclude, or annul, by ordinance, that provision of law. By the tax act of 1907, supra, the legislature levied a tax “upon every club, corporation, or association of persons who shall keep or permit to be kept in any room or place, or any place connected therewith directly or indirectly, in which the members of such club, corporation, or association assemble or frequent, any intoxicating liquors, the sum of five hundred dollars.” The Elks Club of Macon, according to the agreed statement of facts above quoted, kept' and permitted to be kept intoxicating liquors in a “'place connected” with the “place in which the members of the club assembled or frequented;” and it is admitted that the tax of $500 has been paid. The simple question raised, therefore, is whether the license of the State, for which the fee of $500 has been paid, or the ordinance of the city forbidding this assembling of liquors, shall prevail. The City of Macon is but the creature of the State; all its powers of legislation are the gift of the sovereign State; and each and every power conveyed may be withdrawn at the pleas-
It was insisted on the argument, that the purchase and the possession of intoxicating liquors for private use by the citizen is an inalienable right, and that the same right would exist as to a number of citizens lawfully assembled and not otherwise acting in conflict with the provisions of the prohibition law. Without ex
It was held in Fears v. State, 102 Ga. 274 (29 S. E. 463), that ■a municipal corporation could not pass an ordinance which would destroy all rights in property legally held in possession, by making it unlawful to hold it; and in Henderson v. Heyward, 109 Ga. 373 (34 S. E. 590, 47 L. R. A. 366, 77 Am. St. R. 384), it was held ’that the general welfare clause in a municipal charter did not ■authorize the .passage of an ordinance making it penal to receive alcoholic liquors, legally purchased, unless the specific tax for so receiving was paid. Both of these cases originated in prohibition ■counties. In the Fears case it was sought to enjoin the sheriff from selling, under'judicial process, a stock of liquors which had been levied upon under a mortgage foreclosure. The reasoning of the court bears some similarity to that by which we are controlled in the present case, — that is, that the general, sovereign power of the- State to control can not be affected by the provisions of enactments affecting merely inferior subdivisions of the State. The decision in the Henderson case, supra, is not applicable in the present instance, because in that case the court was dealing with the fact that no law had been passed which prohibited the purchase of intoxicating liquors. Since the decision in the Henderson case the general prohibition law of 1907 has been passed, designed, as we have stated above, to prevent, as far as possible, the evil of social drinking; and we therefore conceive that an ordinance which prevents the assembling of liquors for drinking purposes is in accord with the general trend of the State’s policy as evidenced ■by the State prohibition law, and is directed more towards the method in which intoxicating liquor is used than designed to affect the intrinsic private property right in such liquor. A statute prohibiting the citizen from carrying a pistol concealed, or from carrying a pistol to a public gathering, is not violative of the constitutional right of every citizen to have and bear arms. The State, either itself directly, or by the delegation of appropriate powers to municipalities, may prescribe the regulations under which the property right in whisky or any other form of property may he exercised, without infringing upon the property right in such articles. Nay, the State may go further, as a matter of police regulation, in carrying out its paramount duty of protecting the
The general prohibition law (Acts of 1907, p. 82) is exclusive ■of municipal legislation upon the subject of where liquor may not be kept, so far as it deals with the subject; and the legislature having adopted certain specific regulations, the power was taken from the city of doing more than aiding the State in the enforcement of these regulations. The prohibition law covers: (1) the ■sale or barter of intoxicating liquors; (2) the giving away of such liquors to induce trade at the place of business; (3) keeping or furnishing them at any public place; (4) the manufacture; (5) keeping on hand at the place of business of the owner. The city could not punish for a violation of the prohibition law in any of these five respects; because the power of the State to ■deal with them has been exclusively retained. In this state of the law, we think a municipal corporation might have imposed regulations as to the keeping of liquors at private places, in the exercise of its police power; and perhaps it -may still do so, provided the private place is not one of the clubs mentioned in paragraph •47 of section 2 of the tax act of 1907. Having passed a general prohibition bill which did not deal with intoxicating liquors in a private place, the legislature proceeded to deal with that subject in a tax act, as we have stated above, expressly licensing the assembling of liquors at certain places designated. This was tantamount to a withdrawal from all of the subdivisions of the State of the right to enforce any prohibitory ordinance in conflict with the policy declared by the State in the tax act; because no local exception was expressed. “The courts will not infer that the legislature intends to authorize a local departure from the general policy of the State, unless the local exception is expressed in specific terms.” Sanders v. Butler, 30 Ga. 679; Ordinary of Baldwin
Counsel for the defendant in error recognized the force of this principle, and contended that the express authority to pass the ordinance in question is conveyed by the proviso contained in the tax act. The proviso to paragraph 47, quoted above, is in these words: “provided that nothing in this section shall be construed to license or permit the keeping of any intoxicating liquors, in any place now prohibited by law or which may hereafter be prohibited by law.” The contention of counsel for the defendant in error is, that the prohibition contained in the ordinance of the City of Macon in question is prohibition by law within the terms and meaning of the proviso in the tax act. We can not concur in this contention. It is clear that the legislature,, in providing that the license specified in the tax act should not permit the keeping of intoxicating liquors in any place now prohibited, referred to those places, mentioned in the prohibition act, to which we have adverted,- — -public places and places of business, these being the only places where the keeping of liquor was prohibited; and that the concluding clause, referring to places which may hereafter be prohibited by law, was an expression by the legislature of its reservation of the right hereafter to prohibit the keeping of intoxicating liquors at such additional places as it might see fit.
In Haywood v. Savannah, 12 Ga. 410, Judge Lumpkin said: “If then the act of 1809 is not repealed, either directly or by implication, by the act of 1849, surely it will not be seriously contended that such a construction should be put upon the general powers granted to this corporation under the latter act as would enable them to repeal, by an ordinance, a law of the State. We deny the right of the legislature to confer such a power upon a subordinate authority.” It is held, that “the General Assembly can not confer upon a corporation the power, by ordinance, to repeal a statute of the State. A by-law of a corporation, repugnant to the constitution, common, or statute law of the State, is void.” Id. 405 (5). We cite this for the reason that it affords additional
Aside from any other consideration to which we have adverted, our judgment is controlled by the 47th paragraph of the tax act of 1907 (Acts.of 19.07., p. -35), which we have already quoted, and ■the decision in Miller v. Shropshire, supra, in which the Supreme ■Court, in passing upon the “bucket shop” tax, said: “The licensing of the business of speculating in ‘futures’ does not necessarily imprint sovereign approval upon that occupation, but it enables persons who are thus permitted to engage in the business to eseape the consequences which would ensue were they warned not to pursue their calling, upon peril of being subjected to a deterring penalty, to be enforced by a criminal proceeding, or both. It is ’ undoubtedly within the province of our General Assembly to divide those who hazard their money upon chance into two distinct classes, one to be known as ‘gamblers,’ the others as ‘financiers.’ It may not be equally apparent that the interests of the commonwealth are best conserved by sending the .gamester-to the chain-gang and licensing the professional specula
Judgment reversed.
Concurrence Opinion
specially concurring. I concur, because obedience to the spirit of the binding precedent of Miller v. Shropshire, 124 Ga. 829 (53 S. E. 335), forbids that I should do otherwise. My personal judgment has never yielded assent to the principle of that case; for, if it means anything, it means that the State, by