In re Quong Woo

• Decision Date: 01 August 1882
• Court: United States Circuit Court, District of California
• Parties: In re QUONG WOO.

13 F. 229

In re QUONG WOO.

United States Circuit Court, D. California.

August, 1882

McAllister & Bergin and Thomas D. Riordan, for petitioner.

L. E Pratt, Dist. Atty., contra.

FIELD Justice.

In May of the present year an ordinance was passed by the board of supervisors of the city and county of San Francisco, which took effect on the tenth day of June following, to regulate the establishment, maintenance, and licensing of laundries within certain designated limits, and prescribing punishment for establishing or carrying on the business of a laundry in violation of its provisions. In its first section the ordinance declares that after its passage it shall be unlawful for any person 'to establish, maintain, or carry on any laundry within that portion of the city and county of San Francisco lying and being east of Ninth and Larkin streets, without having first obtained the consent of the board of supervisors, which shall only be granted upon the recommendation of not less than 12 citizens and tax-payers in the block in which the laundry is proposed to be established, maintained, or carried on. ' The second section declares that the license collector shall not issue a license to any person or persons proposing to establish, maintain, or carry on a laundry within the limits mentioned, unless he, she, or they shall first have obtained from the board of supervisors their written consent thereto, based upon the recommendation of citizens and tax-payers, as provided in the first section. The third section makes the violation of these provisions a misdemeanor, upon conviction of which the party may be punished by a fine not exceeding $1,000, or by imprisonment not exceeding six months, or by both.

The petitioner is a subject of the emperor of China, residing in the city of San Francisco under the provisions of the treaty between that country and the United States, and alleges that he has for the last eight years been engaged in carrying on the business of a laundry within the limits of the district mentioned, and has at all times paid the license tax enacted from him under previous ordinances, and is still ready to pay any such license tax; that his license issued under said ordinances expired on the thirtieth of June last; that there now exist, and have existed for years, with the residents of the city and county of San Francisco, and its citizens and tax-payers, grant antipathy and hatred toward the people of his race; that combinations among such residents have been formed to drive them from the country; that in consequence of this feeling it has been impossible for him to obtain the recommendation of 12 citizens and tax-payers to carry on his business in the block where he is now engaged, as required by the ordinance of June 10th; and that for carrying on his business without a license issued upon such recommendation he has been arrested, and is now restrained of his liberty by the chief of police. That officer returns that he holds the petitioner under a warrant issued by a justice of the peace and acting police judge of the city and county, issued upon a charge of misdemeanor against him for violating the provisions of the ordinance in question, and accompanies his return with a copy of the warrant.

The question presented is the validity of the ordinance in requiring, for the issue of a license to 'establish maintain, or carry on' a laundry within the limits mentioned, the recommendation of 12 citizens and tax-payers in the block in which the laundry is to be 'established maintained, or carried on.'

The ordinance in terms covers all laundries, whether used for the separate wants of a family or for the washing of clothes of others for hire. We shall assume, however, that it has reference only to laundries of the latter class. It is directed equally against those who establish them, those who maintain them, and those who carry them on. If the recommendation of any parties in the block can be required as a condition of granting the license for either of these purposes, the number is a matter of discretion with the supervisors. They may require the recommendation...