City of St. Louis v. Spiegel

• Decision Date: 23 March 1880
• Citation: 8 Mo.App. 478
• Parties: CITY OF ST. LOUIS, Appellant, v. AUGUST SPIEGEL, Respondent.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

8 Mo.App. 478

CITY OF ST. LOUIS, Appellant,

v.AUGUST SPIEGEL, Respondent.

St. Louis Court of Appeals, Missouri.

Mar. 23, 1880.

1. The St. Louis City Charter of 1876 gives the power to license and tax meat-shops, and a license thereunder need not be uniform throughout the city.

2. The imposition of a license-tax of different amounts in different parts of the city does not violate any provision of the Constitution, and is not such an abuse of the discretion vested in the Municipal Assembly as will warrant an interference by the courts.

APPEAL from the St. Louis Court of Criminal Correction.

Reversed and remanded.

LEVERETT BELL and SAMUEL ERSKINE, for the appellant, cited: Adams v. Lindell, 5 Mo. App. 197; St. Louis v. Jackson, 25 Mo. 37; St. Louis v. Weber, 44 Mo. 547; St. Louis v. Green, 7 Mo. App. 468.

JAMES C. MCGINNIS, for the respondent: The ordinance is not authorized by the City Charter, and is without warrant of law.-- St. Louis v. Sternberg, 4 Mo. App. 453; Savannah v. Hartridge, 8 Ga. 23; Mays v. Cincinnati, 1 Ohio St. 273; St. Louis v. Trust Co., 47 Mo. 153; St. Louis v. Green, 7 Mo. App. 468; St. Louis v. Laughlin, 49 Mo. 562. “The power to license and regulate particular branches of business or matters is usually a police power; but when license-fees are plainly imposed for the sole or main purpose of revenue, they are in effect taxes.”--Cooley's Const. Lim., pars. 281, 495; Glasgow v. Rowse, 43 Mo. 390; Ward v. Maryland, 12 Wall. 418; Cincinnati v. Bryson, 15 Ohio, 625; The State v. Hoboken, 23 N. J. L. 1869; Dill. on Mun. Corp. 291, 295, 609. The ordinance is in conflict with the constitutional provision with regard to uniformity.-- American, etc., Co. v. St. Joseph, 66 Mo. 681; St. Louis v. Sternberg, 8 Cent. L. J. 11.

BAKEWELL, J., delivered the opinion of the court.

Defendant was convicted, in the First District Police Court of St. Louis, of violating the meat-shop ordinance of that city, by carrying on a meat-shop business, at 921 Market Street, without a license. On appeal to the Court of Criminal Correction, defendant moved to dismiss, on the ground that the provision under which he was convicted conflicts with the Constitution of the State. The motion was sustained. The only question urged in this court is the validity of the ordinance.

The ordinance provides that no person shall keep a meat-shop in St. Louis without a license from the city. The ordinance marks out two districts of the city. The first district seems to include what may be called the suburban property within the city limits, whilst the second district embraces the parts of the city built up and which are being rapidly built up. This was assumed on argument to be the fact, and we take it to be so. The districts are marked out in the ordinance by the streets separating them, and nothing is said in the ordinance as to the character of each district. The meat-shop license in the first district is fixed at $100 a year, and in the second district at $25 a year. The ordinance contains many other provisions regulating meat-shops-- registering them, providing when they may be open, and that they shall keep them clean, and so on.

It was competent for the voters of St. Louis, under the State Constitution of 1875, to adopt a city charter containing any provisions as to imposing license-taxes not inconsistent with the Constitution and the existing laws of the State. St. Louis v. Sternberg, 69 Mo. 289. The charter then adopted gives power to the municipal authorities (Art. III., sect. 26) “to assess, levy, and collect all taxes, for general and special purposes, on real and personal property, and licenses; * * * to establish market-places and meat-shops, and license, regulate, sell, lease, abolish, or otherwise dispose of the same; * * * to license, tax, and regulate grocers, merchants, retailers, * * * and all other business, trades, avocations, or professions whatsoever; * * * to license, tax, regulate, or suppress all occupations, professions, and trades not enumerated, of whatever name or character.” These provisions give the right to license meat-shops, as plainly as can be given. It is said in so many words, in the charter, that “the mayor and Assembly shall have power, within the city, to license meat-shops.” The right to tax them is also plainly given, since the city has the power to license and tax grocers, merchants, and retailers, and all trades and avocations whatsoever. If the keepers of meat-shops are not ejusdem generis with “grocers, merchants, and retailers,” then the meaning of these three words must be restrained altogether to grocers, that being the only kind of retail merchants specially named under this subdivision of the fifth section. The business of a meat-shop man, as prescribed in the ordinance under consideration, is to retail meat, game, and vegetables. He is certainly a retailer, and his retail business is akin to that of a grocer. We have no doubt that the charter, by a fair construction of the language used, gives the power to license and tax those keeping meat-shops. Something is urged in argument...