Court Opinion

ID: 9699516
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 20:29:16.828783+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:51.684904
License: Public Domain

Kenison, C. J.,
concurring in part I concur in the judgment of the court that the statute (RSA 105:6) is constitutional. State v. Rogers, 105 N. H. 366.
To sustain the validity of the police regulation reliance is placed on the ruling in a case decided more than a century ago (State v. Freeman, 38 N. H. 426) which, it seems to me, was effectively distinguished out of existence by the unanimous decision in State v. Paille, 90 N. H. 347. However in the interest of impartiality resort is had to quotation rather than characterization. The quotation from State v. Paille, supra, 353-354 is as follows: “It is argued that upon the point of public morals the view here taken does not conform with the authority of State v. Freeman, 38 N. H. 426. There an ordinance of Dover requiring restaurants to be closed after ten o’clock at night was sustained. Restaurants were regarded as ‘places of public entertainment,’ and the ordinance was thought to be a measure promoting ‘the common convenience and safety.’ The court based its decision on the *5authority of State v. Clark, 28 N. H. 176, a case in which an ordinance prohibiting the using or keeping of intoxicants in any ‘refreshment saloon or restaurant’ was held valid as being in the interest of ‘public policy or morals,’ and on the same standing as other laws ‘enacted from a regard to the public peace and safety.’ The view was thus taken that restaurants and liquor saloons had common attributes. ... In view of the extent of the police power over the use and sale of intoxicants the analogy between restaurants and liquor saloons does not seem readily acceptable. Moreover, whether to-day, taking into account the changes in the customs and ways of life from those of nearly a century ago, such an ordinance as was upheld in the Dover case [State v. Freeman, 38 N. H. 426 (1859)] could be thought to be a reasonable interference with personal liberty of action in advancing some proper object of the exercise of the police power, is so doubtful as to be at least debatable.”
In the sea of municipal law, State v. Freeman, 38 N. H. 426 (1859) is a tiny and lonely island. 7 McQuillin, Municipal Corporations (3d ed.) s. 24.333, note 17; Annot. 55 A.L.R. 242, 252; 1 Antieau, Municipal Corporation Law, s. 6.07(18) (1965); City of Jackson v. Murray-Reed-Slone & Co., 297 Ky. 1. On the record before us as applied to the defendant, the reasoning in State v. Paille, supra, is preferable to that of State v. Freeman, supra, and more consistent with the later decisions in related cases involving municipal control. State v. Moore, 91 N. H. 16; Hood & Sons v. Boucher, 98 N. H. 399, 403; Manchester v. Ideal Dairy, 103 N. H. 361, 365.