Giant Tiger Corp. v. Bd. of Com'rs of City of Trenton

• Decision Date: 03 October 1933
• Docket Number: No. 247.,247.
• Citation: 168 A. 310
• Parties: GIANT TIGER CORPORATION et al. v. BOARD OF COM'RS OF CITY OF TRENTON.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

168 A. 310

GIANT TIGER CORPORATION et al.

v. BOARD OF COM'RS OF CITY OF TRENTON.

No. 247.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Oct. 3, 1933.

Certiorari by the Giant Tiger Corporation and another against the Board of Commissioners of the City of Trenton to review an ordinance.

Ordinance set aside.

Argued May term, 1933, before CASE, BODINE, and DONGES, JJ.

Henry M. Hartmann, of Trenton, for prosecutors.

Romulus P. Rimo and Charles E. Bird, both of Trenton, for defendant.

PER CURIAM.

The writ of certiorari brings up a supplement to the city ordinance regulating traffic, which supplement was passed April 7, 1033, and, except for paragraph 2, which simply provides a penalty, consists only of the following: "That no vehicle not actually engaged in receiving or discharging passengers or merchandise shall be ranked and/or parked on either side of St. Joes Avenue, between Meade Street and Olden Avenue, or on Meade Street, between Prince Street and St. Joes Avenue, or on Olden Avenue, between Prince Street and the bridge crossing the Delaware & Raritan Canal, or on Breunig Avenue, between Olden Avenue and the end of said street at the property known as the Ajax Plant."

The Giant Tiger Corporation operates a market in a building on St. Joes avenue, in the city of Trenton, formerly occupied by the Ajax Rubber Company. Giant Tiger Corporation and Krinzman, a lessee of one of the stalls within the market, prosecute the writ and charge that the ordinance is void because unreasonable, discriminatory, and arbitrary. It may be fairly inferred from the proofs that the ordinance was passed with this particular enterprise pre-eminently in mind. Indeed, defendant's brief takes the definite position that "it was the clear duty of the municipality, in the circumstances disclosed by the evidence, to prohibit the use of the streets named in the ordinance as an incident to the business conducted by the prosecutors"; although we are noticed to no incidental use of the streets except for the parking, by customers, of cars while making purchases and bringing of the purchases to the cars. The ordinance affects, and affects only, the street on which the market is located and all sections of streets approaching thereto. The ordinance does not regulate parking on the affected streets; it prohibits parking absolutely at all hours of the day and night and throughout the week. The business transaction at the market is done chiefly by persons who come in automobiles. The ordinance, if enforced, would destroy the business of the market.

St. Joes avenue has a width of thirty feet from curb to curb; Meade street and Olden avenue of thirty-six feet from curb to curb. St. Joes avenue consists of a single long block extending from Meade street to Olden avenue. Breunig avenue consists of a short block running from Olden avenue to certain railroad tracks, and its width is not given. Comparing with business streets in the heart of the business section of Trenton, Front street is about six feet narrower than St. Joes avenue; Hanover street of the same width at one end and two feet narrower at the other; State street...