Carpenter v. State
| Decision Date | 17 September 1908 |
| Citation | 113 S.W. 1042,120 Tenn. 586 |
| Parties | CARPENTER v. STATE. |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
Error to Circuit Court, Fayette County; S. J. Everett, Judge.
Sam Carpenter was convicted of selling intoxicating liquor without a license, and he brings error. Affirmed.
Chas N. Stainback, for plaintiff in error.
Chas T. Cates, Jr., Atty. Gen., for the State.
The plaintiff in error, Sam Carpenter, was indicted, tried, and convicted in the circuit court of Fayette county for selling intoxicating liquors in that county without license required by law, in violation of chapter 161, p. 309, of the Acts of 1899, and has brought the case to this court for review.
The evidence sustains the charge that the plaintiff in error did within 12 months before the finding of the indictment without license so to do, sell intoxicating liquors in the town of Somerville, Fayette county. It further appears that the town of Somerville was incorporated after chapter 221, p. 474, of the Acts of 1899, extending the statute commonly known as the "Four-Mile Law" to towns of a population of not more than 2,000, within which class it came, was enacted, and that there was a schoolhouse where a school was kept within four miles of the place where the sale was made.
The contention of the plaintiff in error is that since the four-mile law, prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquors within four miles of a schoolhouse where a school is kept, and making such sale a misdemeanor, applied to the town of Somerville, the statutes requiring those dealing in intoxicants to pay a privilege tax, and making the sale without license to exercise such a privilege a misdemeanor, as provided in chapter 161, p. 309, of the Acts of 1899, do not apply to that territory; in other words, that one cannot be required to take out a license to do a thing, or punished for failure to take out such license, when the business proposed to be done is prohibited by law.
This contention cannot be sustained. The business of retailing liquors in any part of the state, whether it be where they can be lawfully sold or where the sale is prohibited by the four-mile law, is made a privilege and taxed, and any one engaged in this business, although in violation of the latter law, is liable for this tax. This was held at the present term of the court in the case of Foster v. Speed, 111 S.W. 925. The statute under which the plaintiff in error was indicted,...
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Waters v. Farr
...unanimously upheld the taxation of Foster's business even though its location was unlawful. Id. at 925-26; see also Carpenter v. State, 120 Tenn. 586, 113 S.W. 1042 (1908) (reaffirming Our ruling in Foster is distinguishable on the facts. While Foster's business was operating unlawfully bec......
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Diamond v. State
...it, was no defense to an action to collect the tax imposed from one engaged in such business'--citing authorities. In Carpenter v. State, 120 Tenn. 586, 113 S.W. 1042, is held that the business of retailing liquors in any part of the state, whether it be where they can be lawfully sold or w......
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Portera v. McLemore
...Butzman v. Whitbeck, 42 Ohio St. 223; State v. Tucker, 45 Ark. 55; State v. Brown, 41 La.Ann. 771, 6 So. 638.' See also Carpenter v. State, 120 Tenn. 586, 113 S.W. 1042; Stevenson v. Hunter, 2 Ohio N.P. 300; License Tax Cases, 5 Wall, 462, 18 L.Ed. 497; Annotations in L.R.A.1915C, 101, and ......