State v. Stiling

• Decision Date: 05 June 1890
• Citation: 20 A. 65,52 N.J.L. 517
• Parties: STATE (STERNWEIS, Prosecutor) v. STILING et al.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

20 A. 65

52 N.J.L. 517

STATE (STERNWEIS, Prosecutor)

v. STILING et al.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

June 5, 1890.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Certiorari.

Argued at February term, 1890, before KNAPP and MAGIE, JJ.

Mr. Collins, for prosecutor. Mr. Hudspeth, for defendant.

MAGIE, J. By the twenty-fourth section of the charter of Jersey City (Laws 1871, p. 1106) the board of aldermen is authorized to pass ordinances, among other purposes, "to license, regulate, and prohibit inns, taverns, and restaurants, and the sale or transfer of spirituous, vinous, malt, or other strong or intoxicating liquors." Under this authority an ordinance was passed by the board of aldermen on June 11, 1889, one section of which, as amended by another ordinance approved December 31, 1889, reads as follows: "No person, except a person licensed by the mayor and aldermen of Jersey City, shall by himself or herself, or his or her clerk, servant, or agent, at any time, sell, or offer or expose for sale, or furnish or supply, any spirituous, vinous, malt, or brewed liquors, under the penalty of not exceeding twenty-five dollars for each offense." The words "or furnish or supply" were inserted by the amending ordinance above mentioned. Prosecutor was charged before a police justice of Jersey City with a violation of that ordinance, in that he furnished and supplied within that city 25 boxes of lager-beer without being licensed. To whom the beer in question was furnished or supplied was not set out in the complaint, but no objection was made below or here on the ground of this omission. Upon the trial of the complaint, it appeared that prosecutor was a driver in the employ of one Ohmeis, who was the agent in New York for the sale of Milwaukee beer; that the Pullman Palace-Car Company had, in New York, contracted for the beer in question; and that prosecutor was delivering it to the agent of that company in Jersey City in pursuance of the contract. Such delivery was claimed to be "furnishing or supplying" the beer, within the prohibition of the ordinance. Prosecutor was convicted by the police justice upon this evidence, and this writ was sued out to review his conviction.

The first of the reasons assigned for reversal of the judgment below relates to the amendatory ordinance, which it assails as not within the authority conferred by the charter. The insistment is that authority to license, regulate, and prohibit the sale or transfer of intoxicating liquors, does not justify a prohibition upon the mere furnishing or supplying such liquors, when not connected with a sale of them, or transfer of property in them. But the...