State v. Ackerly

• Decision Date: 15 January 1915
• Citation: 69 Fla. 23,67 So. 232
• Parties: STATE ex rel. SIMPSON v. ACKERLY, City Recorder, et al.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

67 So. 232

69 Fla. 23

STATE ex rel. SIMPSON v. ACKERLY, City Recorder, et al.

Florida Supreme Court

January 15, 1915

Error to Circuit Court, Duval County; Daniel A. Simmons, Judge.

Mandamus by the State, on the relation of T. H. Simpson, against G. D Ackerly, as City Recorder, and others. Judgment for defendants, and relator brings error. Affirmed.

Syllabus by the Court

SYLLABUS

While municipal authority must appear from express or implied statutory provisions, yet, when the authority does fairly appear, wide latitude is allowed in its exercise, where it does not appear that there has been, in action taken, an abuse of authority or a violation of organic or fundamental rights.

Under the authority given in the charter of the city of Jacksonville to 'regulate * * * retailers of liquors' and to provide 'for the health, convenience, and safety of the citizens,' the municipality may, by the due exercise of its police power, circumscribe the area within which intoxicating liquors may be sold in an election district within the city where such sale is lawful under the state law, when such municipal action is not so arbitrary and unreasonable as to deny due process or equal protection of the law; the regulation being designed not to unlawfully effectuate prohibition but merely to localize sales of intoxicating liquors in the election district in the city.

The mere fact that only one liquor dealer is affected by a municipal regulation designed to localize the sale of liquors in an election district in the city does not show arbitrary and unreasonable or unjust discrimination in violation of organic rights.

Property is held and used subject to the lawful exercise of the police power of the state, and an unlawful exercise of such power is not shown in this case.

The burden is on those who assert a denial to them of the equal protection of the laws to make such denial in fact appear and that burden is not successfully carried in this case.

COUNSEL J. E. & Julian Hartridge, of Jacksonville, for plaintiff in error.

Odom &amp Crawford, of Jacksonville, for defendants in error.

OPINION

WHITFIELD J.

An alternative writ of mandamus was issued from the circuit court commanding the city officials to recommend the issuance of and to issue to the relator a license to sell intoxicating liquors at 400 and 402 Bridier street in the city of Jacksonville, or to show cause for not doing so. The alternative writ in effect alleges that the relator had complied with the law which would authorize him to procure a license to engage in the retail sale of intoxicating liquors in a certain election district in Duval county embracing a portion of the city of Jacksonville at a place where he had for several years engaged in such business, and that a renewal of the city license was denied him because the city had by an amended ordinance 'peremptorily and without valid reasons eliminated' lots 1 and 8 in block 38 from the circumscribed area in such election district in which intoxicating liquors may be sold, and that the relator's place of business is in said lot 8. It is alleged that the action of the city and its officials is unauthorized and deprives the relator of property rights secured to him by organic law. A demurrer to the alternative writ, being equivalent to a motion to quash, was sustained, and the relator declining to plead further, final judgment for the respondents was rendered, to which the relator took a writ of error.

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