Case ID: how-pr_33/html/0442-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

COURT OF APPEALS.
    The People, defendants in error agt. Aaron M. Davis, plaintiff in error.
    A license to sell liquor under the excise law of 1857, by a non-resident of the town where the liquor is sold, affords no protection to the licensee.
    The excise commissioners have no authority to sanction the sale of liquor in a town, except by a resident of that town.
    
      January Term, 1867.
    The defendant was indicted, tried and convicted, at the Yates county sessions, for a breach of the act to suppress intemperance, and to regulate the sale of intoxicating liquors. (Laws 1857, eh. 628.) The offense charged was the unlawful sale of liquor in quantities less than five gallons. There were four counts in the indictment; the first three charging the offense to have been committed at the town of Romulus, in the county of Seneca, and on the boundary of the counties of Seneca and Tates, and within five hundred yards of such boundary; the fourth count charged the offense as having been committed in the town of Torrey, and county of Tates.
    The facts proved on trial were, that the liquor was sold by the defendant at his store in Romulus, within twenty yards af the boundary line of the town of Torrey, and the county of Tates. The defendant proved that he had obtained a license to keep a hotel and sell liquor in Romulus ; but it appeared that he was not a resident of Romulus, at the time he obtained such license from the excise commissioners. The court held, that a license to sell liquor, &c., by a nonresident of the town, would afford the licensee no protection. Exceptions were duly taken, and he was convicted.
   This court held, that such license could afford the defendant no protection, as the excise commissioners had no authority to sanction the sale of liquor in the town of Romulus, except by a resident of that town. That he was properly prosecuted in Tates county, as for purposes of criminal jurisdiction, any offense committed within five hundred yards of the county fine was committed within the county of Tates. That there was no error in permitting a general verdict, as the offense in each of the several counts was the same.

And the judgment of the sessions was affirmed.