Court Opinion

ID: 9844445
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:02:56.840855+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:15:35.357252
License: Public Domain

DONALDSON, Justice
(concurring and dissenting).
I concur with the majority opinion except that portion which finds constitutional the four-part classification contained in I. C. § 23-903 and I.C. § 23-948, which require a business engaged in the retail sale of liquor by the drink to be located (1) within an incorporated city, (2) upon a golf course, (3) at a municipal or county airport, or (4) at a lake resort with a certain amount of lake frontage. The majority opinion recognizes that this classification must reflect a “reasonably conceivable, legitimate public purpose, and it must relate reasonably to that ascribed purpose,”' *657and then proceeds to so find. However, in considering the purpose, we must keep in mind Art. 3, § 24 of the Constitution, which states:
“Promotion of temperance and morality. —The first concern of all good government is the virtue and sobriety of the people, and the purity of the home. The legislature should further all wise and well directed efforts for the promotion of temperance and morality.”
and I.C. § 23-901, which says,
“The restrictions, regulations, and provisions contained in this act are enacted by the legislature for the protection, health, welfare and safety of the people of the state of Idaho and for the purpose of promoting and encouraging temperance in the use of alcoholic beverages within said state of Idaho.”
I agree that the limitation of liquor licenses to incorporated cities and to municipal or county airports — in order to insure adequate police supervision and protection and also to provide a closer review of prospective new licensees — is reasonably related to the purpose of promoting public health, safety, and welfare, and, therefore, complies with the equal protection requirements of the Federal and State Constitutions.
However, in regard to the other two classifications, golf courses and lake resorts, I do not think that they bear a direct, real, and substantial relationship to a legitimate public purpose. The purpose is to eliminate illegal traffic in liquor, to promote public safety, and to promote and encourage temperance in the use of liquor by strict control of the sale and distribution of liquor. The majority opinion upholds the classification on the basis that its purpose is to limit the sale of liquor to substantial and permanent enterprises that will pose few police supervision and protection problems. It should be noted that golf courses and lake resorts are frequently located many miles from the nearest law enforcement agencies which, therefore, cannot exercise adequate supervision and control. Merely because golf courses and lake resorts of a certain area are substantial and permanent does not mean that other businesses of a similar substantial and permanent nature which are not located on golf courses or on lakes can be discriminated against by the state under the guise of exercising its police power. A state police regulation, like any other law, is subject to the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. As the Supreme Court of the United States stated in Hartford Steam Boiler I. & Ins. Co. v. Harrison, 301 U.S. 459, 57 S.Ct. 838, 81 L.Ed. 1223 (1937):
“It may be said generally that the equal protection clause means that the rights of all persons must rest upon the same rule under similar circumstances, and that it applies to the exercise of all the powers of the state which can affect the individual or his property * * *.
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“Discriminations are not to be supported by mere fanciful conjecture. They cannot stand as reasonable if they offend the plain standards of common sense.” 301 U.S. at 461-462, 57 S.Ct. at 839 (citations omitted).
And as this Court said in Weller v. Hopper, 85 Idaho 386, 379 P.2d 792 (1963):
“ ‘ * * * A state may not, under the guise of protecting the public, arbitrarily interfere with or prohibit private businesses or lawful occupations, and any regulation must be reasonable in its nature and directed to the prevention of the evils, and adapted to the accomplishment of the avowed purposes.’ 16 C.J.S. Constitutional Law § 188, pp. 925-930.” 85 Idaho at 390, 379 P.2d at 794.
Even in the regulation of the sale of liquor, licensing requirements which are arbitrary or unreasonable violate the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, Glicker v. Michigan Liquor Control Comm’n, 160 F.2d 96 (6th Cir. 1947); Parks v. Allen, 409 F.2d 210 (5th Cir. 1969).
*658In my opinion the classification in question is not founded on a difference that is either rational, fair, or reasonable; rather, it is arbitrary and discriminatory. This ■classification neither protects the health, -welfare, and safety of the people of the 'State of Idaho nor does it promote and encourage temperance in the use of intoxicating liquor.
HAGAN, District Judge, concurs.