Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1883-03-29
THE NEW LICENSE LAW.

The late Legislature passed law direct ]
ing licenses to be laid in every county of
this State. Chapter LXXIII. directs
Supervisors to fix license tax rates for a
number Of vocations, and the law limits
the Board to no specific sum at which such
tax rate shall be fixed. 1t is therefore now
in the power of every Board of Super
vigors in the State to establish what is now
known as high license rates lin contradis-
tinction to some extremely low rates that
have heretofore prevailed), but which are
not to be in fact high rates at all, but sim.
ply fair rates. Those parties who have been
so opposed to thigh license" and who
have threatened to boycott every one favor
ing it, evidently lost sight of the Legisla-
ture, and must now turn their attention
to the Boards of Supervisors, for in the
condition some of the counties are fnsn-
cially, unquestionablY high license will be
applied. The new law requires the new
rates to be fixed on the first Monday in
October, but permits the Boards to apply
them now and collect for the period pre-
ceding October. This question is in no
Hense one of sentiment, but simply of bust
ness and financial management and police
regulation, and all efforts to drag it out of
that groove will fail. An extended analy.
sis of this law appeared in our local col
umns yesterday. At best the Act is
bungliug affair as applied to merchandise
licenses. Without rhyme or reason it
makes determinations of the most unjust
character. We believe the proper course
is to place the merchandise license tax at a
merely nominal figure, since it must be
laid. As it is now entirely matter of dis.
erection with the Supervisors, their action
will probably deprive the city of the ben.
eft it might have derived from acting first
It was short-sighted policy on the part of
the Trustees to fail to do so. The
RECORD. UNION urged the matter upon
them long ago. They may still
act and save the situation, for if the
county schedule is first adopted the city
will find it all but impossible to adopt any
materially beneficial one in addition-the
people will not submit to it. The city
needs the new license income far more than
does the county. With it, it can reduce
other tax burdens materially without it
the burdens will remain. Assuming that
the Supervisors will be the first to act, it
will be wise and feasible to so adjust the
license schedule as to lessen the burdens
of government upon the mercantile,
producing and industrial classes. The
Supervisors may adjust their schedules SO
SIS to classify licenses, specifying those to
be issued in towns and cities and those be-
yond such limits. They can, by descrip-
tions, as matters of designation. check,
and to q considerable extent eliminate the
low factors that now SO largely figure in
the cost of local government, and, as has
been proven by the experience of other To-
calities, achieve a material diminution of
taxation. They viii probably find it lawful
to designate the classes of business which
now assume guise of legitimacy in the
front room, in order to carry on democrat
izing practices in rear apartments, and in
which gambling assignation rooms SO many,
young and old alike, pass the hours
of night. If the Board has moral courage
commensurate with its official authority, it
can do much good to this community, but
If it fears the political influence Of those it
may antagonize, its action will result in
direct Injury. 1t will be better that no
county license tax be collected at all, than
that the local legislature submit tolthe die
tation Of the lower elements of society,
for it will find that the chief opponents of
a fairly high license rate are the keepers
of low doggeries, and that the better class
of liquor dealers favor license fee of
somewhat stringent character.