Case ID: minn_41/html/0553-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Gileillan, C. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

State of Minnesota vs. F. P. Gluck.
    November 5, 1889.
    Insufficient Complaint for not Closing Saloon on Sunday. — A complaint which charges that defendant “did wilfully, unlawfully, and wrongfully fail and omit to close and keep closed” on Sunday a saloon, without stating that he owned it, or had charge or control of it, or of the matter of opening or closing it, does not show a breach of an ordinance prescribing that every saloon, etc., shall be closed and kept closed during the whole of every Sunday, etc.
    Appeal by defendant from an order of the municipal court of Minneapolis, refusing a new trial.
    
      Wm. H. Donahue and J. C. Worrall, for appellant.
    
      Moses E. Clapp, Attorney General, and Albert II. Hall, for the State.
   Gileillan, C. J.

The complaint in this case is insufficient to show a breach of the ordinance. It merely charges that the defendant “did wilfully, unlawfully, and wrongfully fail and omit to close and keep closed during the whole of said day, the same being Sunday, a saloon,” etc., without showing in any way that he was owner of it, or in charge of it, or had any control of it, or of the matter of opening and closing it. Of course the ordinance cannot be deemed as aimed at any but those who are in some way responsible for the saloon being open, or whose duty it' is to keep it closed in obedience to the ordinance. As the order must be reversed and the prosecution dismissed on this ground, we do not consider it necessary to decide anjr of the other questions raised in the case.

Order reversed.