Court Opinion

ID: 9658325
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 20:55:23.881506+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:53.633543
License: Public Domain

O’Hara, J.
(concurring). PA 1962, No 128 is unconstitutional for so many reasons it offers the member of a multi-judge appellate court an attractive variety of bases upon which so to hold.
I am content to rest my concurrence herein on the ground that it imposes criminal liability in language so vague and contradictory as to render its enforcement ludicrously impossible and farcical. For example, the sale of clothing is prohibited except “rain-wear.” Is Bulldog Drummond’s traditional trench *81coat' exempted or included? He wears it, rain or shine, as I do mine. Optical goods are included, sun glasses excluded. If the lenses are tinted, do prescription .glasses become sun glasses? Mattresses are prohibited unless the mattress is primarily intended fof* outdoor camping; then it is exempted. Does the clerk obtain an affidavit attesting it for outdoor camping use only? Pet supplies are barred, except food. If the owner demands ground sirloin for pampered Phydop- does -the* harried merchant sell it? Grooming supplies are not prohibited except power operated devices. If the beep-beep blade user is shaved by another, does his razor become a power-operated shaver? When is plumbing, equipment which is barred become “emergency plumbing” equipment which is permitted? Must the purchaser wait until the emergency has become socially menacing, or may he anticipate the emergency and, if so, by how long? Most intriguing is the test to be applied to athletic equipment necessary to participate in recreational activities. If the item is to be used “on the premises where it is sold” or “within 1 mile, measured directly” the sale has the act’s blessing. If not, the sale subjects the seller to fines of up to $500. Does the clerk make a daily tour of the area “of 1 mile, measured directly” to see if there are baseball diamonds, golf courses, miniature and otherwise, ski tows, swimming pools, et cetera, ad infinitum? Even with this intelligence, who follows the purchaser to see that he doesn’t utilize his new golf clubs at a course more distant than a mile?
If the "high and lofty motive of one-day closing per week is to be attained under its proclaimed banner of “protecting all persons from physical and moral debasement which comes from uninterrupted labor,” the statute enacted to accomplish it, when it makes violation criminally punishable, must be definite and certain enough so that violation thereof *82becomes ascertainable in some manner other than by extra-sensory perception, moon gazing, or resort to a crystal ball.
I too hold the act to be unconstitutional.
Dethmers, J., concurred with O’Hara, J.