Lanning v. Bd. of Excise Com'rs of City of Burlington

• Decision Date: 24 February 1908
• Citation: 68 A. 1083,76 N.J.L. 128
• Parties: LANNING v. BOARD OF EXCISE COM'RS OF CITY OF BURLINGTON.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

68 A. 1083

76 N.J.L. 128

LANNING

v. BOARD OF EXCISE COM'RS OF CITY OF BURLINGTON.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Feb. 24, 1908.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Certiorari by Charles M. Lanning against the board of excise commissioners of the city of Burlington to review a resolution of the board. Resolution affirmed.

Argued November term, 1907, before SWAYZE and TRENCHARD, JJ.

E. R. Walker and Frank S. Katzenbach, Jr., for prosecutor. Ernest Watts, for defendant.

TRENCHARD, J. This writ of certiorari brings up for review the following resolution of the board of excise commissioners of the city of Burlington: "Resolved, that it appearing to the board that the building for which Charles M. Lanning has made application for a license to keep an Inn and tavern is within two hundred feet of the curtilage of the Broad Street M. E. Church, the board has no authority under the law to consider the application of Mr. Lanning." Assuming, but not deciding, that certiorari is a proper remedy in such case (Stout v. Hopping, 17 N. J. Law, 471; Ricardo v. Common Pleas, 38 N. J. Law, 182; Benedict v. Howell, 39 N. J. Law, 221; East Orange v. Hussey, 70 N. J. Law, 244, 57 Atl. 1086), we are of the opinion that the resolution under review must be affirmed.

The reason relied upon by the prosecutor for setting aside the resolution is as follows: "Because the hotel, for a license for which the prosecutor applied to the respondent said board of excise commissioners of the city of Burlington, is not within two hundred feet of the curtilage of the respondent Methodist Episcopal Church in the city of Burlington, N. J., within the meaning of the prohibition contained in section 11 of chapter 114 of the Laws of 1906." The statute in question is to be found in section 4 of chapter 114, P. L. 1906, p. 203. The section is an amendment to a prior act, and so much of it as is pertinent to this case reads as follows: "No license shall be granted to sell spirituous, vinous, malt or brewed liquors by less measure than one quart * * * in any new place within two hundred feet of the curtilage of a church edifice * * * measured between the nearest point of the same and the nearest point of the building wherein such liquors, or any of them, are intended to be sold."

In the present case the license applied for was for a "new place." The building wherein the liquors are intended to be sold is, if the entire building is considered, within twenty-five feet of the "curtilage of a church edifice,"...