Appeal of Beard
| Decision Date | 09 July 1894 |
| Citation | 64 Conn. 626,30 A. 775 |
| Parties | Appeal of BEARD. |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
Appeal from superior court, Fairfield county; Thayer, Judge.
Proceedings by Gerald H. Beard, in the nature of an appeal by him to the superior court from the decision of the county commissioners of Fairfield county granting a license for the sale of intoxicating liquors to John H. McNamara and William McNamara. From an order by that court erasing the cause from its docket, complainant appeals. Reversed.
Russell Frost and John H. Light, for appellant.
J. Belden Hurlbutt, for appellees.
BALDWIN, J. Chapter 175 of the Public Acts of 1893 (page 319) gives an appeal to the superior court from a decision, of county commissioners granting a license to sell spirituous and intoxicating liquors to "any tax-payer of the town in which the business carried on under such license is to be transacted, who shall be aggrieved." Section 3063 of the General Statutes provides that all applications for such a license must be indorsed in writing by five electors and taxpayers of the town. Such taxpayers must by section 3049, be residents in the town, owning property assessed on its grand list. Any citizen of the town, by section 3063, may file with the commissioners objections to granting such a license, upon which a hearing, on due notice, must be had before them. These statutes contemplate three classes of persons in every town as having a special interest in the proper administration therein of the system of licensing liquor sellers: The taxpayers who are electors, the taxpayers who are not electors, and the citizens generally, without distinction of sex. Without the consent of five who belong to the first class, no application for a license can be considered. Any member of the third class may be heard in opposition to such an application; and, should the commissioners decide to grant it, any tax-payer, whether an elector or not, "who shall be aggrieved," can appeal from their decision to the superior court. The term "aggrieved," as used in our statute as to appeals from probate, applies only to those who can show a direct, pecuniary interest in the matter in controversy. Had it been intended that it should receive the same construction, as used in the act of 1893, the class in whose favor the right of appeal was granted would naturally have been restricted to those having some interest in landed property in the immediate vicinity of the place where the liquors were to be sold. But the proof of pecuniary damage to such an interest even, would necessarily be difficult, and, since the appeal must be taken to the next return day after the grant of the license, must always rest largely on the opinion of witnesses as to future probabilities. On the other hand, every owner of property, assessed in the grand list of the town in which he resides, has a substantial interest in the prosperity and good order of that town. The expense of the local police of any town, as well as of criminal proceedings before its local tribunals, is largely dependent on the number of the liquor saloons and barrooms within its limits, and the character of those who keep them. If licenses are granted with too free a hand, or without proper discrimination, the burdens of taxation are likely to be increased. Every taxpayer, therefore, has a certain, though it may be a small, pecuniary interest in having the license law well administered;...
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