Court Opinion

ID: 9449205
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 00:00:51.775043+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:44.419985
License: Public Domain

EDGERTON, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
D.C.Code § 25-107 authorizes the Commissioners “to prescribe such rules and regulations not inconsistent with this chapter as they may deem necessary * * * to control and regulate * * * sale * * * of alcoholic beverages * * *.” They are given “full power and authority to prescribe the terms and conditions under which alcoholic beverages may be sold by each class of licensees * * Manufacturers are a “class of licensees” and so are wholesalers. D.C.Code § 25-111. Section 2-128 (c) of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Regulations provides that “no retailer who remains in arrears” in paying for beverages, for more than a specified time, “may purchase or acquire any beverage from anyone, whether for cash or otherwise * * *.” This prevents manufacturers and wholesalers from selling to retailers who had rather spend their cash for more liquor than pay their overdue debts. This seems to me within the granted authority and entirely reasonable.
The statement in the Regulation that violators will be “subject to the penalties under the Act” seems to me innocuous. I cannot see it as a threat to impose some unspecified penalty not under the Act. I think the statement is irrelevant for the further reason that the Board imposed no penalty, under the Act or otherwise. The Board simply informed appellant, in effect, that its delinquency made the Regulation apply.1
The Regulation “tends, in a most direct way, to promote the program. No *138doubt it tends also to promote the program in an indirect way by indicating that violation may not pay. But an incidental minatory effect does not turn a remedial order into a penal one.” L. P. Steuart & Bro., Inc. v. Bowles, 78 U.S. App.D.C. 350, 352, 140 F.2d 703, 705 (1944), aff’d, 322 U.S. 398, 64 S.Ct. 1097, 88 L.Ed. 1350 (1944); followed in Country Garden Market v. Bowles, 78 U.S. App.D.C. 381, 141 F.2d 540 (1944), cert. denied, 322 U.S. 752, 64 S.Ct. 1264, 88 L. Ed. 1582 (1944); Copper Plumbing & Heating Co. v. Campbell, 110 U.S.App. D.C. 177, 290 F.2d 368 (1961). The notice “did not * * * require the appellant to do anything by way of retribution for any past acts or offenses.” Gallagher’s Steak House v. Bowles, 142 F.2d 530, 535 (2d Cir., 1944), cert. denied, 322 U.S. 764, 64 S.Ct. 1288, 88 L.Ed. 1591 (1944).

. It does not appear that the defendants have interfered or threatened to interfere “with plaintiff corporation’s rights to liquidate his [sic] past due accounts”, *138although, by asking that the defendants be enjoined from such interference, the complaint implies that they are interfering.