City of Fairfield v. Pappas

• Decision Date: 16 December 1935
• Docket Number: No. 23130.,23130.
• Citation: 199 N.E. 292,362 Ill. 80
• Parties: CITY OF FAIRFIELD v. PAPPAS et al.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

362 Ill. 80

199 N.E. 292

CITY OF FAIRFIELD

v.PAPPAS et al.

No. 23130.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Dec. 16, 1935.

Bill Pappas and another were convicted of violation of an ordinance of the City of Fairfield, and they appeal.

Judgments of conviction reversed.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Wayne County; Roy E. Pearce, Judge.

Burgess & O'Neal and Virgil W. Mills, all of Fairfield, for appellants.

Thomas H. Creighton and Charles C. Hill, both of Fairfield, for appellee.

HERRICK, Justice.

Bill Pappas and Lou Faulkner were before a justice of the peace found guilty of selling intoxicating liquor in the city of Fairfield in violation of an ordinance of that city passes and approved May 15, 1933, which prohibited the sale of intoxicatingliquor within the city. The defendants appealed to the circuit court, and the cases were by agreement there consolidated and tried on an agreed state of facts. It was stipulated that each defendant on February 16, 1935, within the corporate limits of the city sold at retail intoxicating liquor; that Pappas in a sale made by him acted as a clerk for George Ginnopoulous, who had a retailer's license from the Department of Finance; that Faulkner had a like license; and that neither Faulkner, Pappas, nor Ginnopoulous had a license issued by the city authorizing the sale of intoxicating liquor within the city. The circuit court found each defendant guilty and fined him $50 and costs. The defendants bring those judgments for review direct to this court, the trial judge having certified that the issue involved the validity of a municipal ordinace of the city and that the public interest required a review of the case by this court.

The validity of the ordinance is the only issue here. The decision of that question involves the construction of certain provisions of ‘An Act relating to alcoholic liquors,’ approved January 31, 1934. Laws 1933-34, 2d Sp.Sess., pp. 58-94 (Smith-Hurd Ann.St. c. 43, § 94 et seq., and notes). The city relies on sections 46, 48, 59, 66, and 102 of article 5 of the Cities and Villages Act of 1872, as ameneded (Smith-Hurd Ann.St. c. 24, §§ 65.45, 65.47, 65.58, 65.65, 65.101), as supporting its power to enact the ordinance in question; also section 13 of article 3, paragraph 10 of section 1 of article 7, and section 1 of article 10 of the act relating to alcoholic liquors, supra (Smith-Hurd Ann.St. c. 43, §§ 109, 145(10), 183). By section 46 of article 5 of the Cities and Villages Act (Smith-Hurd Ann.St. c. 24, § 65.45), power was granted cities, villages, and incorporated towns to license, regulate, and prohibit the sale of intoxicating liquor within any such municipality, provided that in granting a license such corporate authorities should comply with whatever general laws of the state might then be in force relating to the issuance of such license. The other sections of the Cities and Villages Act, supra, deal with the same subject-matter and the power of the municipalities relative thereto.

Prior to the enactment of the Illinois Prohibition Act the Dram-Shop Act was a genedral law of the state relative to the sale at retail of intoxicating liquor, and a municipality granting license therefor was required to comply, in so far as pertinent, with the provisions of that act. Strauss v. City of Galesburg, 203 Ill. 234, 67 N.E. 836. The Illinois Prohibition Act in force July 1, 1921, prohibited the sale for beverae purposes of all intoxicating liquor in the state. By section 38 of that act (Smith-Hurd Rev.St. 1921, c. 43, § 39; Cahill's Rev.St. 1921, c. 43, p. 1467), cities and villages were granted the power to adopt ordinances prohibiing the manufacture, transportation, possession, sale, and gift, within their territorial limits,of intoxicating liquor. This latter act was repealed in its entirety by Senate Bill No. 2 (Laws 1933, p. 518), and even if we were to concede that where one law is repealed by another and subsequently an act is adopted which repeals the repealing statute thereby the first statute is revived, there still remains for consideration the Dram-Shop Act approved January 31, 1934.

Subsequent to the passage of Senate Bill No. 2, there next followed the act in relation to the manufacture, possession, and sale of malt and vinous beverages, approved April 26, 1933 (Laws 1933, p. 518), and the amendment thereto of July 7, 1933 (Laws 1933, pp. 524-528). The present Dram-Shop Statute, by section 2 of article 11 thereof (Smith-Hurd Ann.St. c. 43, § 194), expressly repealed the act of April 26 and the amendment thereto, and further states: ‘All other laws in conflict with this Act, or any of the provisions hereof, in so far as such laws and parts thereof are in conflict herewith, are hereby repealed.’

It is elementary that the licensing, regulating, and prohibiting the traffic in intoxicating liquor is reposed in the police power of the state. The state may reserve the power within itself or delegate it to such municipalities and political subdivisions as the legislative body of the state may deem proper. The granting of such power to such municipalities and political subdivisions is not absolute and perpetual, but is revocable at the legislative will. The state may resume such powers and thereafter redelegate the same or only a part thereof, to be exercised in accordance with the terms of the legislative grant. Dingman v. People, 51 Ill. 277. The Dram-Shop Act of 1934, in force at the time of the sales in question was enactedfollowing the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and the repeal of the Illinois Prohibition Act, was a complete revision of the law on the subject of intoxicating liquor and provided a full and complete code relative thereto. A statute which is a complete revision of and intended as a substitute for prior laws upon the same subject repeals all existing laws upon that subject. People v. Williams, 309 Ill. 492, 141 N.E. 296;People v. Town of Thornton, 186 Ill. 162, 57 N.E. 841;State Board of Health v. Ross, 191 Ill. 87, 60 N.E. 811. Another accepted rule in the interpretation of statutes is that where the legislative body enacts a new law upon a certain subject, revsing the whole subject-matter and providing a new and different plan therefor, such new act manifests a legislative declaration that what is included in the new statute shall prevail over the provisions of the former law upon the same subject, excepting only such provisions as may be rewritten into the new legislation. Such revision discloses an intent to reject such of the provisions of the former act as are not included in the later act. People v. Town of Thornton, supra; Murdock v. Mayor of Memphis, 20 Wall. 590, 22 L.Ed. 429; Black on Interpretation of Laws, p. 116. So, also, where the provisions of the two acts are clearly repugnant the later law operates as a repeal of the former (People v. Town of Thornton, supra), and in the construction of a statute for the purpose of ascertaining its meaning the object sought to be accomplished is an important factor meriting full consideration. Strauss v. City of Galesburg, supra.

With these fundamentals in mind, we approach the present Dram-Shop Act for the purpose of determining its meaning as related to the issue here. A complete reversal of the legislative thought from that embodied in the Illinois Prohibition Act is evinced by the present Dram-Shop Act. Section 1, art. 1, thereof (Smith-Hurd Ann.St. c. 43, § 94), states, in substance, that the objects sought by the act are the protection of the health, safety, and welfare of the people by the practice of temperance in the consumption of alcoholic liquor and the sound and careful control and regulation of the manufacture, sale, and distribution thereof. Provision is made by such act for the revocation, for cause, of a liquor dealer's license at a hearingbefore the local liquor commission of the city, village, or political subdivision, an appeal is provided therefrom to the state commission, and from thence to the circuit court or superior court of the county in which the premises licensed are situated. From these provisions it is obvous that the matter of licensing a liquor dealer or revoking his license was not deemed by the state...