Orme v. City of Tuscumbia

• Decision Date: 11 April 1907
• Citation: 43 So. 584,150 Ala. 520
• Parties: ORME v. MAYOR, ETC., OF CITY OF TUSCUMBIA.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

43 So. 584

150 Ala. 520

ORME v. MAYOR, ETC., OF CITY OF TUSCUMBIA.

Supreme Court of Alabama

April 11, 1907

Appeal from Circuit Court, Colbert County; Ed B. Almon, Judge.

L. Orme was convicted of a violation of an ordinance of the city of Tuscumbia regulating the sale of intoxicating liquor, and he appeals. Affirmed.

James Jackson and Orme & Branch, for appellant.

W. L Chitwood, for appellee.

McCLELLAN J.

The appellant was convicted of the violation of an ordinance which declared it an offense for a retailer of spirituous vinous, or malt liquors to keep open any part of his house on the Sabbath day. Ordinances regulating, under the police power, the liquor business, especially in relation to the proper and orderly observance of the Sabbath, have been too often approved to require, in these days, any reconsideration of their propriety or validity, except in the respect to decide whether the ordinance brought up for consideration is within the bounds fixed by paramount law, constitutional statutory, and charter, aided by judicial decision. And in interpreting or construing ordinances the rule, applicable to statutes generally, is that "courts will give them a reasonable construction, and will incline to sustain rather than to overthrow them. * * * Thus, if by one construction an ordinance will be valid, and by another void, the courts will, if possible, adopt the former." 1 Dillon on Municipal Corp. § 420.

The appellant seems to contend that the only proper interpretation of the ordinance is that it attempts to create an offense in the keeping open on the Sabbath of any part of the building wherein the retailer carries on his business. Such a construction should not, we think, be placed upon the ordinance; and, if it was, the ordinance would be patently void, because under it the resident or occupant of an edifice in which the retailer pursued his business would be inhibited from keeping open on the Sabbath his abode or place of business (if otherwise allowed), though wholly disconnected from the place of business. Rather than this construction which invalidates the ordinance, one reasonable, and also favorable to validity, is that the ordinance makes it an offense to keep open any part of the division, apartments, or connected section of the house used for the retailing business. It cannot be doubted that such an ordinance is within the competency of the municipal authorities to ordain, to the end that the Sabbath may be the better observed, as well as for the purpose of rendering more difficult the unlawful sale of liquors on that day. The fact that the retailer has his residence in the same apartment with his...