Agoglia v. Mulrooney

Decision Date19 July 1932
Citation259 N.Y. 462,182 N.E. 84
PartiesAGOGLIA v. MULROONEY, Police Commissioner, etc., of New York City.
CourtNew York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE

Proceeding by Herman Agoglia for a peremptory mandamus order, requiring Edward P. Mulrooney, Police Commissioner of New York City, to issue a cabaret license. From an order of the Appellate Division (235 App. Div. 696, 255 N. Y. S. 899) affirming as matter of law an order of the Special Term granting the application, defendant appeals.

Orders reversed, and motion for peremptory mandamus denied.

Appeal from Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Second Department.

Arthur J. W. Hilly, Corp. Counsel, of New York City (Milton I. Hauser and J. Joseph Lilly, both of New York City, of counsel), for appellant.

Jacob Shientag, of New York City, for respondent.

PER CURIAM.

Local Law No. 12, enacted in 1931 by the municipal assembly of the city of New York, prohibits the operation of a public dance hall or a cabaret without a license issuable by the police commissioner. No such license shall be issued unless, among other things, the place sought to be licensed ‘in the opinion of the Police Commissioner is a safe and proper place to be used as a public dance hall or a cabaret.’ It is not without significance that the law in question transferred jurisdiction over the issuance of dance hall and cabaret licenses from the department of licenses to the police commissioner.

Petitioner herein applied for a cabaret license. The police commissioner refused to issue it because in his opinion the place sought to be licensed was not a safe and proper one to be used as a cabaret. This refusal has been held by the Special Term and by the Appellate Division to have been capricious and unreasonable. The police commissioner has been commanded by a peremptoryorder of mandamus forthwith to issue and deliver the license applied for.

We learn from the petition itself that in the immediate neighborhood of the petitioner's premises there are four pool rooms in operation; also that within a few hundred feet is located a public school. The superintendent of schools in a letter to the police commissioner opposes issuance of the license because of the propinquity of the proposed cabaret to the school. The decision of the police commissioner was based upon a consideration of those facts as well as upon records of the police department and certain reports received through regular police channels, the exact purport of which does not appear. Under...

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10 cases
  • De Matteo v. O'Connell
    • United States
    • United States State Supreme Court (New York)
    • August 21, 1957
    ...... 'The petitioner has therefore shown no clear legal right, and the commissioner's opinion, rather than that of the courts, must control' (Agogliatrol' (Agoglia v. Mulrooney......
  • Carroll v. Hastings
    • United States
    • United States State Supreme Court (New York)
    • December 9, 1977
    ......Moss, 277 N.Y. 501, 507, 14 N.E.2d 808; Matter of Agoglia v. Mulrooney, 259 N.Y. 462, 465, 182 N.E. 84; Maytum v. Nelson (4th Dept.), 53 A.D.2d 221, 385 N.Y.S.2d 1018). Before a court may direct that a ......
  • Park East Land Corp. v. Finkelstein
    • United States
    • New York Court of Appeals
    • April 14, 1949
    ...262, 78 N.E.2d 602;Matter of Marburg v. Cole, 286 N.Y. 202, 214, 36 N.E.2d 113, 118, 119, 136 A.L.R. 734;Matter of Agoglia v. Mulrooney, 259 N.Y. 462, 182 N.E. 84. The ‘judicial function is exhausted when there is found to be a rational basis for the conclusions approved by the administrati......
  • Playboy Club of New York, Inc. v. O'Connell
    • United States
    • New York Supreme Court Appellate Division
    • April 11, 1963
    ...... The purpose of the legislation is undermined if the place is to be judged without a sensible regard to its activities. In Matter of Agoglia v. Mulrooney (259 N.Y. 462, 182 N.E. 84), one of the circumstances influencing denial of a cabaret license was the propinquity of the premises to a ......
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