City of St. Louis v. Spiegel
| Decision Date | 31 January 1887 |
| Citation | 90 Mo. 587 |
| Parties | City of St. Louis v. Spiegel. |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Appeal from St. Louis court of appeals.
A. C. Clover and L. Bell, for respondent. R. Hinzel and J. O. McGinnis, for appellant.
The defendant was prosecuted in the First district police court of St. Louis for violating sections 1 and 4 of article 3 of chapter 23 of the Revised Ordinances of the City, approved March 29, 1881, as amended by ordinance 12,508, approved July 21, 1883, by keeping a meat-shop without a license. The case was tried in the police court on November 6, 1883, and the defendant was found guilty, and adjudged to pay a fine of $50 and costs. He appealed to the St. Louis court of criminal correction, where the case was tried anew, and the defendant was discharged. The city appealed to the St. Louis court of appeals, where judgment was rendered in its favor. 16 Mo. App. 210. The case is here by appeal.
On a former occasion, when the defendant was prosecuted under ordinance 10,384, known as the “Meat-shop Ordinance,” for a violation thereof, and appealed to this court, we held that the license fee was a tax within the meaning of section 3, art. 10, of our state constitution,-a section which provides that taxes “shall be uniform upon the same class of subjects within the territorial limits of the authority levying the tax;” and because that ordinance imposed a tax of $25 on meat-shops in one portion of the city, and a tax of $100 on meat-shops in another portion of the city, we held that the ordinance discriminated in favor of one class of meat-shops, and against the other, and was therefore obnoxious to the constitutional provisions above noted.
The sections 1 and 4 of ordinance 12,508, under the provisions of which the defendant was convicted, are as follows:
“Section 1. No person, persons, or copartnership of persons shall open or keep a meat-shop in the city of St. Louis without having first obtained from the collector a license therefor; and any person, persons, or copartnership of persons, doing business as a meat-shop keeper or keepers, shall pay an annual license of fifty dollars in advance, which license shall authorize and empower such person, persons, or copartnership of persons to sell in their shops all kinds of fresh and salt meats, fresh and salt fish, sausage, and sausage-meat, whether made by them or not; and also all kinds of fowl, and game in their proper seasons, that is not prohibited being sold or offered for sale by any ordinance of this city or law of this state; all kinds of vegetables and fruit, in large or small quantities, for one year from the date of such license. And it is hereby provided that the owners of meat-shops who have paid their license may be permitted to...
To continue reading
Request your trial