Court Opinion

ID: 9681915
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 08:01:14.296922+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:36.628388
License: Public Domain

SANDERS, Justice
(dissenting).
I can see no substantial difference between Act 290 of 1964 and the 1948 statute that this Court struck down in Schwegmann Brothers v. Louisiana Board of Alcoholic Beverage Control, 216 La. 148, 43 So.2d 248, 14 A.L.R.2d 680 (1949). Nor can I find any significant change in the basic economic factors since that decision. Hence, in my opinion, the previous decision requires that the present statute be declared unconstitutional.
The statute has no real or substantial relation to temperance in the use of alcoholic beverages. Rather, it is designed to eliminate price competition in the market by fixing a minimum price. The statute simply chops away another section of our free enterprise system. As Justice Brandéis aptly warned, “No system of regulation can safely be substituted for the operation of individual liberty as expressed in competition.”
I respectfully dissent.