State v. Dwyer

• Decision Date: 01 May 1875
• Parties: STATE OF MINNESOTA <I>vs.</I> D. E. DWYER.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

21 Minn. 512

STATE OF MINNESOTA vs. D. E. DWYER.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

May 1, 1875.

Defendant was convicted before a justice of the peace, upon a complaint for unlawfully selling spirituous liquors in the town of Albert Lea, contrary to an ordinance adopted by the supervisors of the town. Upon appeal to the district court for Freeborn county, the defendant was tried before Page, J., and a jury, who found a verdict against him, upon which judgment was entered, from which this appeal is taken.

Gordon E. Cole and D. B. Johnson, jr., for appellant.

A. M. Tyrer, for the State.

BERRY, J.

By sec. 3, ch. 13, Sp. Laws 1870, it is enacted that "the supervisors of the town of Albert Lea shall have full and exclusive power and authority * * * to grant licenses, and to regulate * * * * all persons vending or dealing in spirituous, vinous, fermented, mixed or intoxicating liquors; provided, that the license for so dealing in * * liquors shall be at least fifty dollars a year, and as much higher as the council shall direct, and that no license shall be granted for a less term than one year; and provided further, that no license shall be issued until the money is first paid."

In the exercise of its general legislative power, it is entirely competent for the legislature, in the absence of constitutional restraint, to invest the supervisors of a municipal township, though a quasi corporation only, with the authority specified above. The defendant's position to the contrary is therefore not well taken.

By virtue of the section cited, and other sections of the same chapter, authorizing the passage of ordinances, the supervisors passed an ordinance providing for the granting of licenses to sell liquors, and requiring that before any license should be issued, the licensee should give a bond, conditioned, among other things, that no liquors should be sold to any person then being intoxicated, or to any minor, and providing further that any license may be revoked at any time by the board of supervisors, "whenever it shall appear to its satisfaction * * that any conditions of the bond aforesaid have been violated."

The words, "whenever it shall appear to its satisfaction," require that the fact upon which the revocation is to be based, should appear, and of course that such fact should have an actual existence, so that the supervisors are not authorized to revoke arbitrarily and at pleasure. With this construction, these provisions of the ordinance respecting...