Court Opinion

ID: 9582708
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:30:33.487699+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:38:15.655428
License: Public Domain

*191TOAL, Justice,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. True local option legislation like that at issue here constitutes general law, not special legislation. In finding S.C.Code Ann. §§ 12-21-2806 and -2808 (Supp. 1995) violate Article III, § 34 of the South Carolina Constitution, the majority ignores longstanding South Carolina precedent as well as persuasive authority from jurisdictions throughout the nation. Moreover, it misconstrues the case law and constitutional provisions upon which it relies. I would affirm.
For more than one hundred years, state legislatures have enacted local option statutes relating to the regulation of alcohol and gambling. Not surprisingly, such legislation frequently has been challenged as being violative of equal protection and of various states’ constitutional prohibitions on special legislation or delegation of legislative powers. See, e.g., Harrison v. State, 687 P.2d 332 (Alaska App.1984) (challenge to local option liquor law on grounds that law violated equal protection); Clark v. State, 172 Tenn. 429, 113 S.W.2d 374 (1938) (challenge to local option liquor law on grounds that law was unconstitutional delegation of legislative powers); State ex rel. McLeod v. Harvey, 125 Fla. 742, 170 So. 153 (1936) (challenge to local option law regarding slot machines on grounds that law was unconstitutional delegation of legislative powers). The overwhelming weight of precedent nationwide finds local option legislation valid as general law. See Norman J. Singer, Sutherland Statutory Construction § 40.02 (5th ed. 1993) (summarizing cases holding that local option legislation constitutes general law); 2 Eugene McQuillan, The Law of Municipal Corporations § 4.49 (1988) (summarizing cases holding that local option legislation constitutes general law). Succinctly put, “[l]ocal option legislation, which by its own terms applies only in those parts of the state where it is adopted by local action, is not special if all parts of the state are afforded the same option to adopt it or not.” Singer, supra, § 40.02.
However, some cases have found local option laws constitute special legislation because the “legislation may take effect in a special or local manner and is not, therefore, inherently general in its operation.” 2 McQuillan, supra, § 4.49 (listing cases holding local option laws constitute special legislation). This *192view is unreasonable. In In re Cleveland, 18 A. 67 (N.J.Sup. 1889), aff'd, 19 A. 17 (N.J.Err. & App.1890), a New Jersey court addressed the argument that “when a franchise or privilege has been tendered by the legislature to every locality, such tender is special or local because it may not be universally accepted.” Id. It rejected that argument, reasoning that “if an act, from its inherent force and scope, must necessarily produce a local and not a general result ... it will fall under constitutional condemnation.” Id. at 68. In other words, if a statute will necessarily produce a local result, it is special legislation; if, however, the statute has the potential for a uniform result, as does all true local option legislation, it is general legislation.
South Carolina courts have adhered to the majority rule that local option laws are valid general law. In Murph v. Landrum, 76 S.C. 21, 56 S.E. 850 (1907), the plaintiffs challenged the constitutionality of the Brice law under Article III, § 34 of the South Carolina Constitution. The Brice law concerned the establishment of alcohol dispensaries in the counties of South Carolina. The law provided for local option elections to allow voters of each county to determine whether to establish a dispensary in their county. Id. at 27, 56 S.E. at 852 (quoting Brice law). A unanimous Supreme Court found the argument that the Brice law violated Article III, § 34 “untenable” and held that “the law is general.” Id. at 36, 56 S.E. at 855.
Similarly, in Atkinson v. Southern Express Co., 94 S.C. 444, 78 S.E. 516 (1913), this Court stated in dicta that a statute that allowed shipment of alcohol into some counties but not into others would be constitutional. Specifically, the Court quoted Ohio v. Dollison, 194 U.S. 445, 24 S.Ct. 703, 48 L.Ed. 1062 (1904) (emphasis added), which states:
Plaintiff in error urges that to make an act a crime in certain territory, and permit it outside of such territory, is to deny to the citizens of the State the equal operation of the criminal laws; and this he charges against, and makes a ground of objection to the Ohio statute. This objection goes to the power of the State to pass a local option law, which we think is not an open question____ We said, affirming prior cases, the sale of liquor by retail may be absolutely prohibited by a State. That being so, the power to prohibit *193it conditionally was asserted, and the local option law of Texas was sustained.
Although the United States Supreme Court in Dollison was discussing the federal Equal Protection Clause, the purpose of S.C.Const. art. Ill, § 34 parallels that of the Equal Protection Clause. See Thompson v. South Carolina Comm’n on Alcohol & Drug Abuse, 267 S.C. 463, 471, 229 S.E.2d 718, 721 (1976) (“Many states have constitutional provisions, similar to ours, prohibiting special laws. The overall purpose of these provisions is closely related to the equal protection guarantee in both constitutions.”).
Furthermore, the South Carolina Supreme Court has long recognized that questions concerning alcohol and gambling are uniquely suited to local resolution because of differing conditions and public sentiment. In Clegg v. City of Spartanburg, 132 S.C. 182, 128 S.E. 36 (1925), for example, the Court addressed the power of a municipality to prohibit the operation of billiards and pool tables for hire. In upholding the right of the City of Spartanburg to outlaw the maintenance and operation of public pool rooms within its limits, the Court recognized the State’s right, when appropriate, to prescribe different laws for different localities within the territory of the State:
To interpret a license law affecting such business, expressly limited to certain territory, is an indication of the policy that the business might not be prohibited by the State or its duly constituted agencies in other territory, is to ignore the fundamental principle that, subject to constitutional restrictions as to local laws, the authority that legislates for the State at large in the exercise of the police power may prescribe entirely different and inconsistent laws for different localities within the territory of the State, according as the circumstances of a particular locality or the prevailing public sentiment of a particular section of the State may demand.
Id. at 191, 128 S.E. at 39 (emphasis added); accord City of Charleston v. Jenkins, 243 S.C. 205, 209, 133 S.E.2d 242, 244 (1963) (upholding law forbidding alcohol consumption in City of Charleston during certain hours; finding that “[t]he preservation of health, safety, welfare and comfort of dwellers in urban centers of population often requires the enforcement of *194very different and usually much more stringent police regulations in such district than is necessary in a State taken as a whole”). I do not cite these cases to suggest that municipalities always may, on their own, absent a general law permitting local option, enact criminal ordinances outlawing alcohol and gambling; S.C.Const. art. VIII, § 14 likely prohibits such criminal ordinances. My point is simply that historically, this Court has found that questions concerning gambling and alcohol implicate important local concerns, which should be honored when constitutionally possible.
Given the existing case law and other authority, the constitutionality of the local option law at issue here seems clear. By their terms, sections 12-21-2806 and -2808 apply to all counties in South Carolina. Voters in each county have the same opportunity to determine whether they will have coin-operated nonpayout video games machines, and nothing in the statute precludes a result that is absolutely uniform. Accordingly, the law is a general law.
The majority claims the effect of the law is the relevant consideration for purposes of Article III, § 34. In other words, that a law is facially general is not dispositive of whether it constitutes special legislation. Although this is correct as a statement of law, the majority misunderstands the rule and misapplies it in this case.
Virtually all the South Carolina cases applying this rule have concerned laws that facially, at least, were general, but that necessarily would have affected various counties differently. See, e.g., United States Fid. & Guar. Co. v. City of Columbia, 252 S.C. 55, 165 S.E.2d 272 (1969) (striking down population-based classification the only effect of which was to allow the City of Columbia to charge higher business and professional license taxes than other cities); Elliott v. Sligh, 233 S.C. 161, 103 S.E.2d 923 (1958) (striking down population-based classification the effect of which was to make illegal only in Richland and Charleston counties certain kinds of fireworks); Town of Forest Acres v. Forest Lake, 226 S.C. 349, 85 S.E.2d 192 (1954) (striking down population-based classification that had effect of making certain law applicable only to Richland County). With population-based classifications, a local effect is inevitable. For that reason, a statute that treats municipalities differently simply based on their populations *195must be examined carefully to determine whether the legislation contravenes Article III, § 34. In contrast, it is not inevitable that a true local option law will produce nonuniform results. Accordingly, such a law should be upheld as a general law.
Neither S.C.Const. art. VIII, § 14 nor our decision in Thompson v. South Carolina Commission on Alcohol & Drug Abuse, 267 S.C. 463, 229 S.E.2d 718 (1976) compels a different result.1 Article VIII, § 14 does not even remotely touch upon the issue in this case. Article VIII, § 14 provides: “In enacting provisions required or authorized by this article, general law provisions applicable to the following matters shall not be set aside: ... (5) criminal laws and the penalties and sanctions for the transgression thereof----” (emphasis added). This section might be applicable but for the fact that a true local option statute, like that here, is a general law. In other words, the local option law at issue contains general law provisions.
Moreover, although there are some incidental criminal penalties attached to unlawful possession or operation of the video games machines at issue in this lawsuit, the Video Game Machines Act, S.C.Code Ann. §§ 12-21-2770 to -2809 (Supp. 1995), is primarily a regulatory Act governing questions of licensing and operation of video game machines. The local option statute is part of this regulatory scheme. S.C.Const. art. VIII, § 14 does not concern regulatory statutes. Additionally, one cannot help but wonder why, if article VIII, § 14 is as central to the analysis of the constitutionality of local option legislation as the majority apparently believes, the Thompson court made no mention of it. Article VIII, § 14 is not relevant to this case.
Thompson is also inapposite. In Thompson, we struck down a law that punished criminals differently based on whether the county in which they committed their crime *196participated in certain alcohol treatment programs. One state statute, S.C.Code § 16-558 (as amended 1975), provided that any person found in a public place or at a public gathering in a grossly intoxicated condition was guilty of a misdemeanor and was. subject to either a fine or thirty days in jail. This statute applied uniformly throughout the state. However, another statute granted immunity to violators of section 16-558 if the county or municipality in which the offense was committed elected to participate in a certain alcohol and intoxication treatment program. In other words, the latter statute did not “change[] the criminal law in any municipality or county; rather, it grant[ed] immunity from prosecution and directed] that any municipality or county participating in the Alcohol and Intoxication Treatment Program refrain from enforcing the criminal law as such and, in lieu of prosecution, encourage the violator to voluntarily undergo treatment.” Thompson, 267 S.C. at 469, 229 S.E.2d at 720-21.
The Thompson court found that the latter act, though general in form, constituted special legislation in violation of Article III, § 34 of the state constitution. Id. at 472, 229 S.E.2d at 722. The Court found that the legislature could pass a general law prescribing either criminal penalties or treatment for public drunks, but could not allow disparate treatment of persons guilty of the same criminal offense. Id.
This case is unlike Thompson in several important respects. Most importantly, the local option law at issue here does not allow for disparate treatment of criminals based on the county in which the crime was committed. Instead, it simply allows voters to determine whether possession and operation of coin-operated nonpayout video game machines will be legal in their county. In all counties where such machines are illegal, the criminal penalties are the same. Also, as previously noted, the Video Game Machines Act functions primarily as a regulatory statute; its criminal penalties are merely incidental and themselves serve regulatory purposes.
The majority fails to acknowledge the important distinction between a law that punishes the same crime differently in different locales and one that simply and legitimately allows local communities to determine whether to allow alcohol and gambling. The former kind of law, like that at issue in *197Thompson, is unconstitutional. The latter kind of law, however, is a long-recognized, valid method for allowing local communities an appropriate degree of self-determination with respect to the regulation of alcohol and gambling. I see nothing in our constitution or case law that invalidates true local option legislation. Moreover, the longstanding nationwide judicial acceptance of local option legislation — even in light of constitutional provisions like article III, § 34 — is yet another indication of the validity of such legislation. The majority’s position effectively overrules any number of old precedents, most notably Murph v. Landrum, while my position requires overruling only one anomalous case, Daniel v. Cruz. I would affirm the judgment of the circuit court.
ORDER
The petition for rehearing is denied.
Further, we deny the motion of South Carolina Association of Counties to intervene. We take this opportunity to emphasize once again that our ruling in this case is a narrow one. Where there is no relevant statewide criminal law, local government may regulate conduct consistent with its constitutional and statutory authority. Moreover, we reject the contention that we have somehow limited the power of the General Assembly to delegate police power to local government. It is completely within the General Assembly’s discretion to repeal a statewide criminal law in favor of allowing local government to regulate the conduct in question.
Finally, we deny the motion of South Carolina Department of Natural Resources to intérvene. It is axiomatic that the prohibition against special laws found in article III, § 34(IX), of our constitution does not apply where another constitutional provision specifically authorizes a special law. Ruggles v. Padgett, 240 S.C. 494, 126 S.E.2d 553 (1962). Article III, § 34, itself empowers the General Assembly to divide the State into zones for the protection of game.

. The majority cites Daniel v. Cruz, 268 S.C. 11, 231 S.E.2d 293 (1977), to support its position that sections 12-21-2806 and -2808 are unconstitutional special legislation. Unlike this case, Cruz concerned only the Equal Protection Clause. Nevertheless, the facts in Cruz were similar to the facts of the present case. In my opinion, Cruz was wrongly decided. To the extent it is inconsistent with my dissent today, I would overrule it.