Court Opinion

ID: 9844852
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:10:19.487222+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:15:45.284389
License: Public Domain

SHINN, P. J.
I concur in the judgment. This controversy could have been resolved by a little mature thinking on one side or the other. Sultan, operating as a combined bathhouse and hotel, serves some 3,500 customers a month; half of them sleep through the night. An exceedingly small proportion of them cause serious trouble and have created an intolerable condition. The findings acquit the managers of knowingly permitting illegal acts upon the premises. There is no basis in the findings or the evidence for attributing to them base motives and evil character, nor is there any such contention. They had a duty to use extreme measures to remedy the condition and they failed in this duty.
As a result of the surprising lack of common sense in handling the situation the business is to be closed up and a great number of worthy citizens who have need for the beneficent advantage of being steamed out in a Turkish bath will be seriously discommoded. There has never been a doubt of the cause of the trouble and the cure for it. All the management had to do was remove the doors from the sleeping rooms and provide adequate lighting. This it stubbornly refused to do. Upon the other hand, the board should have exercised its power under the city charter to regulate the business. It should have imposed as a condition to the continued operation of the business that the doors of the sleeping rooms be removed and the place well lighted throughout. When a legitimate business is shown to be in need of regulation its operation cannot properly be prohibited if it can be successfully subjected to regulation by the authorities. A public authority which has the power to license businesses, and to regulate them, is remiss in its duties if it permits them to be operated without regulation and exercises only its power to refuse permits or to revoke them. However, in view of the positions taken by the parties in the litigation I do not think it is *202incumbent upon this court to order the matter to be remanded to the board for further consideration. No doubt there will be an occasion for that at some future time.
A petition for a rehearing was denied April 23, 1959, and appellant’s petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied May 20, 1959.