Case ID: mich_120/html/0486-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Grant, C. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

PEOPLE v. TALBOT.
    1. Intoxicating Liquors — Sunday Opening — Information.
    An information for violation of the statute requiring all saloons where intoxicating liquors are sold or kept for sale, “either at wholesale or retail,” to be closed on Sunday, need not state whether respondent’s saloon was a wholesale or a retail one, the offense and penalty being the same in either case.
    2. Same — Defenses.
    It is no defense to a prosecution for keeping a saloon open on Sunday that no liquor was sold, or that the only entrance to the living apartments occupied by the respondent was through the rooms used for saloon purposes.
    Exceptions before judgment from Berrien; Coolidge, J.
    Submitted May 3, 1899.
    Decided June 28, 1899.
    Timothy Talbot was convicted of keeping his saloon open on Sunday.
    Affirmed.
    Respondent was convicted of keeping a saloon open on Sunday. He lived over his saloon. There was a room back of the bar-room. From this room a pair of stairs led up to his living rooms. Swinging doors opened from this room into the saloon. On the Sunday in question the officers went to the back door; were admitted; two persons were sitting at a table; two glasses on the table; the. doors into the saloon were open, and one of the respondent’s bartenders was behind the bar. The defense was that no liquor was sold; that respondent was away from home, and had given strict orders to his bartender not to open the saloon.
    
      James O’Hara (O’Hara & O’Hara, of counsel), for appellant.
    G. M. Valentine, Prosecuting Attorney, for the people.
   Grant, C. J.

(after stating the facts). 1. The second count* — the one upon which respondent was convicted — charged him with keeping a saloon, “the same being a place where spirituous, intoxicating, malt, brewed,' and fermented liquors were sold and kept for sale; such saloon not being a drug-store.” Objection was made to a conviction under this count, because it did not state that liquors were kept for sale either at wholesale or retail. The proposition deserves no discussion. The statute provides that all saloons where any such liquors are sold or kept for sale, either at wholesale or retail, shall be closed. It was not necessary to allege that the saloon was a wholesale or a retail one. The statute applies to either. The offense and punishment are the same.

2. The other defense is covered by previous decisions of this court. People v. Schottey, 116 Mich. 1; People v. Bowkus, 109 Mich. 360. The fact that the only entrance to his home was through this room is no defense.

Conviction affirmed.

The other Justices concurred.