Miller v. Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission
| Decision Date | 08 December 1959 |
| Parties | Celia C. MILLER et al. v. ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES CONTROL COMMISSION et al. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Paul Levenson, Boston (George L. Rabb, Boston, with him), for petitioners.
Richard H. Gens, Asst. Atty. Gen., for respondent Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission.
James W. Kelleher, Boston (George J. Leary, Boston, with him), for interveners.
Before WILKINS, C. J., and WILLIAMS, COUNIHAN, WHITTEMORE and CUTTER, JJ.
This is a petition for review purportedly under G.L. c. 30A. The petitioners are three of twenty-seven taxpayers who filed a petition with the respondent alcoholic beverages control commission complaining that the interveners, owners of three package stores in Boston, namely, Blanchard & Co., Inc., Blanchard, Inc., and Blanchard Liquors, Inc., were violating certain provisions of G.L. c. 138. The commission conducted a hearing and filed a 'decision' in due detail concluding, The commission and the interveners demurred to the petition for review. From an interlocutory decree sustaining the demurrers and from a final decree dismissing the petition, the petitioners appealed.
The material portion of G.L. c. 138, § 67, as amended through St.1953, c. 672, which governed the proceedings before the commission, reads: 'Upon the petition of twenty-five persons who are taxpayers of the city or town in which a license has been granted by such authorities, * * * or upon its own initiative, the commission may investigate the granting of such a license or the conduct of the business being done thereunder, and may, after a hearing, modify, suspend, revoke or cancel such license if, in its opinion, circumstances warrant.'
At the outset of the decision the commission declared that there was no requirement of a hearing before determining whether to investigate the licensees or to proceed formally against them. We then read in the decision: 'This commission, however, held a hearing on the petition upon the agreement by counsel for the petitioners and counsel for the three licensed premises that a hearing would be held to determine if there was any basis in fact for some action to be taken by the commission on account of violations of c. 138, and that in the event the commission found that the allegations in the complaint were substantiated, the appropriate formal hearing would be held.'
The second ground of demurrer by the interveners is, 'The petition will not lie because the proceedings of which review is sought were not 'adjudicatory proceedings' within the meaning of G.L. c. 30 A, §§ 1(1), 14.' The commission's demurrer states this ground in slightly different language: 'That the proceeding sought to be reviewed is not an adjudicatory proceeding within the meaning of c. 30A.' However expressed, this ground is good. The commission is admittedly an agency. Springfield Hotel Ass'n, Inc. v. Alcoholic Beverages Control Comm., Mass., 157 N.E.2d 219. But there was no adjudicatory proceeding as required by c. 30A, § 1(1). Hayeck v. Metropolitan Dist. Comm., 335 Mass. 372, 140 N.E.2d 210; Natick...
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