Case Title: Green v. Copeland

Citation: 239 So. 2d 770

Docket Number: 

State: alabama

Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Date: 1970-10-01T00:00:00Z

Document:
239 So. 2d 770 (1970)
W. Cooper GREEN, as President of Board of Commissioners of Jefferson County, Alabama, et al.
v.
E. J. COPELAND.
6 Div. 679.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
October 1, 1970.
John S. Foster, Maurice F. Bishop, J. Howard Perdue, Birmingham, for appellants.
Huey, Stone & Patton, Bessemer, for appellee.
SIMPSON, Justice.
This is a zoning case. The facts were stipulated.
For some 22 years the appellee has operated a restaurant on the property involved, where he sold beer under a license issued by the Alabama Beverage Control Board. On October 23, 1967, the ABC Board issued its order indefinitely suspending appellee's license to sell beer on the premises. On February 6, 1968, the appellant Board of Commissioners adopted a zoning resolution changing the zoning of appellee's premises from C-3 (where the sale of beer is allowed) to C-1 (where the sale of beer is not allowed).
Thereupon, the appellee filed a bill for declaratory judgment contending that § 982, Appendix Volume 14, Code of Alabama, *771 entitles appellee to sell beer on his premises notwithstanding the new zoning regulation. That statute is the county zoning statute, enabling the county to pass zoning laws. It was enacted in 1947 and provides in part as follows:
The trial court entered its decree holding that the zoning regulation did not apply to appellee's premises because "there existed on the premises at the time the Legislature authorized said Board of Commissioners to regulate and control the zoning of real estate in the unincorporated area of Jefferson County a restaurant in connection with which the Complainant was duly and legally authorized to sell and dispense beer by the Alabama Beverage Control Board. The existing use or occupation of the premises is expressly excluded from the control of the governing body of the County by Section 982 * * *."
The appeal is from this decree.
As we view the case the question is whether the appellee is entitled to continue to sell beer on the premises notwithstanding the fact that he was not lawfully authorized to do so on the effective date of the new zoning regulation because his beer license had been suspended by the ABC Board.
Cases on this general problem have almost uniformly held that a property owner has a right to continue a non-conforming use of his property until such time as the right to do so is lost through the abandonment of such use before or after the adoption of the zoning legislation. See cases compiled at 18 A.L.R.2d 725, et seq.
It is, of course, equally true that under virtually all of the cases it is recognized that the use must be an actual use, as distinguished from a contemplated one, actually in existence at the time the zoning restriction becomes operative. Board of Zoning Adjustment for City of Lanett v. Boykin, 265 Ala. 504, 92 So. 2d 906; Rathkopf, The Law of Zoning and Planning, Vol. 2, Chapter 58, § 2, which collates cases from all jurisdictions so holding.
The question then is whether there was an actual non-conforming use of the premises in this case on the effective date of the zoning regulation when beer was not being sold because of the ABC suspension of the appellee's license.
The elements which indicate the presence of an "existing use" have been defined as follows:
To work an abandonment of the right to continue a non-conforming use connotes a voluntary act on the part of the owner. This court held in Board of Zoning Adjustment for City of Lanett v. Boykin, supra, after pointing out that the courts have generally held the word discontinuance, as used in a zoning ordinance, is equivalent to abandonment, that
See also 101 C.J.S. Zoning §§ 198, 199; 58 Am.Jur., Zoning, § 153.
We do not believe that the facts in this case meet the above test. There was no voluntary interruption of the sale of beer, but an enforced suspension because of the action of the ABC Board.
In Gauthier v. Village of Larchmont, 30 A.D.2d 303, 291 N.Y.S.2d 584, app. den. 22 N.Y.2d 646, 295 N.Y.S.2d 1028, 242 N.E.2d 494, the New York Court held where a hotel had included a bar prior to Prohibition, the bar had the same vested non-conforming status as the hotel despite the fact that Prohibition prevented the sale of liquor in the hotel two years before and twelve years after the zoning restriction was enacted.
So here we believe the forced suspension of the sale of beer by the ABC Board defeats any claim that there was a voluntary discontinuance of such non-conforming use.
Appellants argue that Fulford v. Board of Zoning Adjustment of City of Dothan, 256 Ala. 336, 54 So. 2d 580, requires a different result. We cannot agree. There the question was whether a non-conforming restaurant use could be extended to include the sale of beer. This court held that such extension would be an unauthorized one under the zoning ordinance. That is not the case here. In this case the appellee has lawfully sold beer in connection with the restaurant for over 20 years. The sale of beer is a part of the non-conforming use to which the appellee has a vested right until it is voluntarily abandoned.
Affirmed.
LIVINGSTON, C.J., and COLEMAN, BLOODWORTH, and McCALL, JJ., concur.