State v. Lucas

• Decision Date: 15 April 1902
• Citation: 94 Mo. App. 117,67 S.W. 971
• Parties: STATE v. LUCAS.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

67 S.W. 971

94 Mo. A. 117

STATE v. LUCAS.

Court of Appeals of St. Louis, Missouri.

April 15, 1902.

INTOXICATING LIQUORS — DRAMSHOP ACT — PERSONS AMENABLE — DRUG CLERK — SUNDAY SALES — DETECTING OFFENSES — DEFENSE.

1. A person who sells liquor on Sunday violates Rev. St. 1899, § 2243, making it a misdemeanor for any person to expose for sale any goods, wares, or merchandise, or to keep open any ale or porter house, grocery, or tippling shop, or to sell or retail any fermented or distilled liquor on Sunday, even though the sale was not made by him in continuation of his regular business during the secular days of the week.

2. A clerk in a drug store, who, acting on his own initiative, sells liquor unlawfully, throws off the protection with which the law clothes him as an employé, and, being neither a druggist, pharmacist, nor proprietor of a drug store, is amenable to the dramshop act, and subject to prosecution for violation thereof, and is not answerable merely under the law relating to druggists and pharmacists.

3. The fact that prosecuting witnesses were furnished money by citizens for the purpose of buying whisky at a particular drug store with a view to prosecuting the seller, and that each bought the whisky with the money so furnished, was no defense to the prosecution for the unlawful sales.

Appeal from circuit court, Butler county; Jas. L. Fort, Judge.

George Lucas was convicted of selling liquor unlawfully, and appeals. Affirmed.

R. H. Stanley and L. D. Grove, for appellant. D. W. Hill, for respondent.

BLAND, P. J.

Two informations against defendant were filed by the prosecuting attorney of Butler county in the office of the circuit clerk thereof. One charged the defendant with having sold one-half pint of whisky to one H. M. Rhodes on the first day of the week, commonly called "Sunday." The other charged him with having sold one-half pint of whisky to one A. J. Young, in violation of the dramshop act. The informations were both heard at the same time, and by agreement the issues were submitted to the court sitting as a jury. The court, after hearing the evidence, found the defendant guilty on both informations, and rendered up separate judgments on each finding. Timely motions for new trial and in arrest were filed by the defendant, which the court overruled, whereupon defendant appealed.

1. At the close of the state's evidence defendant offered a declaration of law in the nature of a demurrer to the information for the Sunday sale, which the court refused to give. This ruling is assigned as error. The ground of the assignment is a failure in the evidence to show that the sale of the liquor was made in continuation of the regular business of the defendant during the secular days of the week. It had been shown that the liquor was sold from a drug store. There is no merit in this contention. The section of the statute (section 2243, Rev. St. 1899) on which the information is bottomed makes it a misdemeanor for any person to expose for sale any goods, wares, or merchandise, or to keep open any ale or porter house, grocery, or tippling shop, or to sell or retail any fermented or distilled liquor on the first day of the week, commonly called "Sunday." The statute may be violated by the...