48 Pa. Super. 216 | Pa. Super. Ct. | 1911
Opinion by
The appellant was a huckster and had a stand in a public market of the city of York. The judgment from which she appeals rests on the following distinct finding of facts by the learned judge of the court below. The defendant, on June 24, 1910, during market hours, purchased onions in the Western Market, being one of the markets of the city of York, with the intent and purpose of selling them again in said market, at a stall or stand, then and there occupied by her. The court, upon so finding the facts, adjudged the defendant guilty of violation of a city ordinance prohibiting such act, and* imposed the fine author
The first question involves the consideration of the power of the state to regulate public markets, and the extent of the authority which it has delegated to cities to establish and regulate such markets, where producers of the necessaries of life may resort to make sales and consumers to supply their wants. The public sale of articles of food has been the subject of police regulation and control from a time very remote and it became a principle of the common law that, in the public markets of a town, the producers of provisions and the consumers thereof should be permitted to deal directly with each other, without the interference of speculators who bought commodities in the market for the purpose of selling them again in the same market. “It is said, that all endeavors whatsoever to enhance the common price of any merchandise, and all kinds of practices which have an apparent tendency thereto, whether by spreading false rumors, or by buying things in a market before the accustomed hour, or by buying and selling again the same thing in the same market, or by any such like devices, are highly criminal at common law, and that all such offenses anciently came under the general notion of forestalling which included all kinds of offenses of this nature:” Hawkins’s Pleas of the Crown, bk. 1, p. 644. These offenses against public trade were at a later périod treated by statute and “a forestaller” was defined to be one who bought any merchandise, victual, or any other thing
“The necessity of a public market, where producers and consumers of fresh provisions can be brought together at stated times for the purchase and sale of those commodities, is very apparent, there is nothing which more imperatively requires the constant supervision of some authority which can regulate and ycontrol it. . . . It can never be so well placed as when it is put into the hands of the corporate officers who represent the people immediately interested. A municipal corporation, comprising a town of any considerable magnitude, without a public market subject to the regulation of its own local authorities, would be an anomaly which at present has no existence among us. The state might undoubtedly withhold from a town or a city the right to regulate its market, but to do so would be an act of mere tyranny and a gross violation of a principle universally conceded to be just, that every community,, whether large or small, should be permitted to control, in their own way, all those things which concern nobody but themselves. The daily supply of food to the people of a city is emphatically their own affair. It is true, that the persons who bring provisions to the market have also a sort of interest in it, but not such an interest as entitles them to a voice in its regulation. The laws of a market (I am now using the word in its larger sense) are always made by the persons who reside at the place, and that whether they be buyers or sellers. It is, therefore, the common law of Pennsylvania, that every niunicipal corporation which has power to make by-laws and establish ordinances to promote the general welfare, and preserve the peace of a town or city, may fix the time or places of holding public markets for the sale of food, and make such other regulations concerning them as may conduce to the public interest:” Wartman v. Philadelphia, 33 Pa. 202. It was in that case held that the city might at any time remove the
The Act of May 23, 1889, P. L. 277, “Providing for the incorporation and government of cities of the third class,” expressly conferred upon such cities power “To purchase and own grounds for, and to erect and establish market houses and market places; for which latter purpose parts of any street or side-walk may be temporarily used, and to provide and enforce suitable general market regulations.” That statute also conferred upon such cities authority to make such ordinances, by-laws, rules and regulations, not inconsistent with the constitution and laws of this commonwealth, as may be expedient or necessary for ... . the maintenance of the peace, good government and welfare of the city, and its trade, commerce and manufactures: art. V, sec. 3, paragraphs XXX and XLVI, pp. 291 and 294. There can be no question, therefore, that the city of York was vested with authority to regulate and control this public market, which the court below found to be “one of the markets of the city of York.” The ordinance of which the appellant complains is not inconsistent with the constitution and laws of this commonwealth. The appellant, however, asserts that the ordinance is unreasonable. An ordinance cannot be declared invalid upon this ground unless it be made to appear that the regulation is clearly unreasonable. It was said of public markets, in Wartman v. Philadelphia, 33 Pa 202, that the municipality may “make such regulations concerning them as may conduce to the public interest.” The regulations which the city is authorized to make are to be made in the interests of the public, to enable the inhabitants of the city to supply their wants in the public market, and they are not to be made for the promotion of the interests of any individual dealer. The reasonableness of a rule which excluded hucksters from a public market was recognized and sustained by Judge Shars-wood, when sitting in the district court of Philadelphia,
We decided nothing in the case of Central Market Co. v. Erie, 44 Pa. Superior Ct. 191, which is not in harmony with this view. The plaintiff in that case was a corporation created under the general act of April 29, 1874, P. L. 73, and the supplements thereto and the case involved the question of - the effect of the ordinance upon private property. It was well shown by our Brother Head, who wrote the opinion in that case, that when a private corporation undertakes to conduct a market house for the sale of provisions, it becomes subject to the supervision and control of the police'power of the municipality in which the market is maintained. The extent of the power of supervision possessed by the municipality over a market maintained by a private corporation was commented upon in Strickland v. Pennsylvania Railroad Co., 154 Pa. 348, and there can be no question that the municipality does have power of general supervision over the market house of a private corporation, during the time that a public market is maintained therein. The property of such a private corporation, so maintaining a market, is not, however, dedicated to public use, and the municipality does not have the same control over that property, at least outside of
We are not in the present case called to pass upon the question of the constitutionality of the Act of May 16, 1901, P. L. 224, sec. 21, providing that policemen of a
The judgment is affirmed.