Kitt v. City of Chicago

• Decision Date: 20 May 1953
• Docket Number: No. 32675,32675
• Citation: 415 Ill. 246,112 N.E.2d 607
• Parties: KITT et al. v. CITY OF CHICAGO et al.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

Page 607

112 N.E.2d 607

415 Ill. 246

KITT et al. v. CITY OF CHICAGO et al.

No. 32675.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

May 20, 1953.

Moses Levitan and Theodore J. Levitan, both of Chicago, for appellants.

John J. Mortimer, Corp. Counsel, of Chicago (L. Louis Karton and Harry H. Pollack, of Chicago, of counsel), for appellees.

FULTON Justice.

This is an appeal from the circuit court of Cook County seeking a construction of section 193-26 of the Municipal Code of Chicago involving the licensing of certain games of amusement. The arguments concern the constitutionality of the ordinance as well as its application to the matter in question.

The plaintiffs-appellants, hereinafter designated as plaintiffs, are the distributors for the types of coin games involved in this suit. They filed seven separate suits against the defendant city, each suit covering a separate game or games, asking for a writ of mandamus to require the proper officials of the defendant to issue licenses for the operation of the machines. Subsequent amendments were filed asking for a declaratory judgment that the machines in question do not fall within the purview of the ordinance.

The enabling act, section 23-56 of the Revised Cities and Villages Act, provides that the corporate authorities of a municipality shall have power 'To license, tax, regulate, or prohibit pin, ball, or bowling alleys, billiard, bagatelle, pigeon-hole, pool, or any other tables or implements kept for a similar purpose in any place of public resort.' Ill.Rev.Stat.1951, chap. 24, par. 23-56.

Acting under this authority, the city of Chicago adopted an ordinance (Municipal Code of Chicago, sec. 193-26), which, as amended, now reads: 'Bagatelle and pigeonhole. It shall be unlawful for any person to keep or use in any place of public resort within the City any tables or implements for any game of bagatelle or pigeonhole. The term 'bagatelle or pigeonhole' as used in this section shall mean a game played with any number of balls or spheres upon a table or board having holes, pockets or cups into which such balls or spheres may drop or become lodged and having arches, pins and springs, or any of them, to control, deflect, or impede the direction or speed of the balls or spheres put in motion by the player, and shall include the modern variety of bagatelle or pigeonhole commonly known as pin games.'

The dictionaries define 'bagatelle and pigeonhole' as games similar to pool or billiards and played on a table with a cue.

The plaintiffs make several attacks on the constitutionality of the ordinance in question, claiming that it is an attempt by the city to extend and enlarge the powers granted by the enabling act in that the ordinance has been amended to include pinball games; that it enlarges the meaning of the term 'place of public resort;' and that the enabling act does not authorize the city to pass an ordinance restricting the mere keeping of a game without a license.

The answer of the defendants alleged that the machines were within the prohibition of the ordinance and that the plaintiffs were not entitled to a declaratory judgment. At the conclusion of the plaintiffs' case the defendant moved for a finding for defendant, which motion was granted. The order determined that a declaratory judgment is not a proper remedy, that plaintiffs' games are pin games or modern variations of bagatelle and pigeonhole, and that the ordinance is applicable to the plaintiffs' machines.

We have read with care the arguments of the parties on the point of the constitutionality of the ordinance and come to the conclusion that the city did not exceed its authority in amending the ordinance to include pinball games or extending its right to regulate devices of like nature. In People ex rel. Fyfe v. Barnett, 319 Ill. 403, 150 N.E. 290, 292, we said: 'The true rule is that statutes are to be construed as they were intended to be understood when they were passed. * * * The words of a statute must be taken in the sense in which they were understood at the time the statute was enacted.'

It is obvious that the legislature in enacting a statute cannot foresee in physical detail all of the items and things to be controlled under the general purpose motivating the statute. Modern science moves too rapidly to make this possible. The legislature must, in every instance, take things as it finds them and extend the general purpose concerning those things into the future by the use of general language. Here the legislature gave the power to municipalities to regulate certain games in existence at the time the statute was adopted. These games were table games to be found in places of general public resort. The games in existence in these places have passed with time and, taking their place, new games and devices have come into existence. Some of these, it seems to us, in this advanced day of development, are 'tables or implements kept for a similar purpose.'

It was not required that the city exercise all the license powers granted it by the enabling act. The ordinance includes certain specific games which the city had the power to regulate under the enabling act. It was not required to adopt all. People v. Callicott, 322 Ill. 390, 153 N.E. 688.

The large question before this court is whether or not the ordinance is applicable to the games in question. These games are bowling games whereby a flat circular disc is slid along a table some 8 feet long. At...