Court Opinion

ID: 6661844
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-07-20 21:02:45.365491+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:00:12.267765
License: Public Domain

Rose, J.,
dissenting.
The controlling question presented by the record is very simple, and its proper solution is free from difficulty. Can a village board issue a valid license authorizing the sale of intoxicating liquors in a building controlled by a manufacturer of beer? The statute says, “No,” in language too plain for misinterpretation or misconstruction. Rev. St. 1913, sec. 3892. The power of the legislature to pass such a law and to make it applicable to present owners of property devoted to saloon purposes has been affirmed by the supreme court of the United States as follows: “Lawful state legislation, in the exercise of the police powers of the state, to prohibit the manufacture and sale within the state of spirituous, malt, vinous, fermented, or other intoxicating liquors, to be used as a beverage, may be enforced against persons who, at the time, happen to own property whose chief value consists in' its fitness for such *259manufacturing purposes, without compensating them for the diminution in its value resulting from such prohibitory enactments.” Mugler v. Kansas, 128 U. S. 623.
The arm of sovereignty created by law to withhold from an applicant a license to sell intoxicating liquors in a building controlled by a manufacturer of beer is the licensing board. Contrary to the pronouncement of the majority, the legislature has in unmistakable terms clothed that board with the machinery and the power to investigate and determine whether a proposed site for a saloon is owned or controlled by a brewer. If the licensing board makes a mistake in exercising such authority, the courts may correct it by means of an appeal. Rev. St. 1913, ch. 40. In the present case, under rules of evidence recognized by the courts of Christendom, it is shown that the licensing board, in violation of law, granted an illegal license to conduct a saloon in a building controlled by a manufacturer of beer. The legislature had power to authorize the licensing board to investigate and determine the ownership or control of a building for the purpose of granting or refusing a saloon-keeper’s license. In passing upon the sufficiency of a petition for a license to sell intoxicating liquors, the licensing boards, under legislative power recognized by this court, have, for many years, investigated and passed upon the petitioner’s title to real estate. Administrative bodies like the county board, the state board of irrigation and the state railway commission are now performing duties which affect property rights. The former judgment pronounced by this court would enforce the statute as written. The evidence is correctly stated and the law is properly applied in the first opinion. The license was canceled according to both the spirit and the letter of the statute. Enos v. Hanff, 95 Neb. 184. For these reasons, I adhere to the former decision, and dissent from that of the majority.
Letton. J., concurs in this dissent.