Court Opinion

ID: 9580831
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:09:23.146401+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:36:33.406676
License: Public Domain

COCHRAN, J.,
dissenting.
In a carefully drafted memorandum opinion, the trial judge analyzed the applicable law and concluded that the City of Virginia Beach is prohibited from imposing a tax on retail sales of alcoholic beverages in restaurants. Because I agree with the rationale and conclusion of the trial judge, I would affirm the judgment.
The Alcoholic Beverage Control Act, Acts 1934, c. 94, established a comprehensive statewide system for the regulation of all aspects of manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages. The Act provided for taxation at the state level and authorized, within prescribed limits, issuance and taxation of licenses at the local level. The Act also provided for distribution to localities, on the basis of population, of certain net profits from sale of alcoholic beverages through the statewide system. Localities electing under the local option provisions of the Act not to permit the sale of alcoholic beverages within their borders nevertheless share in the distribution of net profits derived from sales throughout the state. With this significant compromise, which enables localities to exercise *136with impunity their option to prohibit local sales, the Act came into existence to provide a centralized system of control.
The trial judge acknowledged that the charter of the City of Virginia Beach authorized it to impose the sales tax in question unless otherwise prohibited by law. But he concluded that Code § 4-96 prohibited imposition of the tax. Code § 4-96 provides:
No county, city or town shall, except as otherwise provided in § 4-38 or § 4-97, pass or adopt any ordinance or resolution regulating or prohibiting the manufacture, bottling, possession, sale, distribution, handling, transportation, drinking, use, advertising or dispensing of alcoholic beverages in Virginia.
At the time this statute was enacted the meaning of “regulate” had been broadly enough defined to include taxation. See Southern Ry. Co. v. Russell, 133 Va. 292, 300, 112 S.E. 700, 703 (1922). Thus, the United States Supreme Court had long held that the constitutional power of Congress to “regulate” interstate commerce preempted the field and prevented states from imposing taxes on such commerce. See Phila. Steamship Co. v. Pennsylvania, 122 U.S. 326, 336 (1887).
The Act is a comprehensive scheme by which the General Assembly assumed complete control over the manufacture, sale, and use of alcoholic beverages in the state. The General Assembly removed from all others the power to regulate, by taxation or other means, the distribution of alcoholic beverages, except in two isolated instances. Code § 4-96 establishes two exceptions to the rule against local regulation of alcoholic beverages. First, Code § 4-38 authorizes localities to charge for local licenses under the Act, expressly permitting them to impose local wholesale, retail, or restaurant license taxes that “include alcoholic beverages in the base for measuring such local license taxes.” Second, Code § 4-97 relates to local ordinances restricting hours of sale of alcoholic beverages.
The City contended in the court below and on appeal that former Code § 58-441.49, authorizing, inter alia, “local taxes on transient room rentals and meals,” provided an additional exception to the prohibition of local regulation of alcoholic beverages by allowing a local sales tax on meals, including alcoholic beverages. Although the Restaurant Association may have abandoned in oral *137argument its prior contention to the contrary and conceded that meals include alcoholic beverages, it is far from clear that the General Assembly intended the term “meals” to be so interpreted.
The Code defines “meals” as “an assortment of foods commonly ordered in bona fide, full service restaurants as principal meals of the day.” Code § 4-98.1. In other sections, it distinguishes “food” from “alcoholic beverages,” listing them as separate and distinct items. See Code §§ 4-98.2(a), 4-98.7. Thus, there is no reasonable basis for concluding that, as used in Code § 58-441.49, “meals” include alcoholic beverages.
Furthermore, as the trial court noted, even if Code § 58-441.49 could be construed to authorize a local sales tax on alcoholic beverages served as part of a meal, such a grant of authority would contravene the proscription of Code § 4-96 against local regulation. Because the General Assembly intended the Act to preempt local regulation of the distribution of alcoholic beverages, except in the specified cases enumerated in Code § 4-96, the City’s sales tax on alcoholic beverages served in restaurants should not be allowed to stand.
COMPTON and RUSSELL, JJ., join in dissent.