Teutonia Club v. Howard

• Decision Date: 09 December 1913
• Citation: 80 S.E. 290,141 Ga. 79
• Parties: TEUTONIA CLUB ET AL. v. HOWARD ET AL.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

80 S.E. 290

141 Ga. 79

TEUTONIA CLUB ET AL. v. HOWARD ET AL.

Supreme Court of Georgia

December 9, 1913

Syllabus by the Court.

A social club, paying the specific tax provided in the Civil Code 1910, § 933, for keeping or permitting to be kept intoxicating or malt liquors in a room where its members assemble or frequent, is not authorized to sell such liquors to its members or others.

(a) Under the evidence, the court was authorized to find, for the purposes of an interlocutory injunction, that the club (a corporation) and its manager were engaged in the illegal sale of intoxicating liquor, and did not abuse its discretion in enjoining the further sale of intoxicating liquors on the premises until the final hearing in a proceeding brought under the blind-tiger abatement act contained in the Civil Code 1910, § 5335.

So much of the order as adjudicated the club to be a nuisance, and abated as such, is tantamount to a final judgment, which cannot be rendered on an interlocutory hearing; and it is directed that this adjudication be stricken from the order.

Error from Superior Court, Bibb County; H. A. Mathews, Judge.

Action by J. R. Howard and others against the Teutonia Club and others. Judgment for plaintiffs, and defendants bring error. Affirmed.

Jno. R Cooper, Hall & Roberts, and Sam B. Hunter, all of Macon, for plaintiffs in error.

R. D Feagin, of Macon, for defendants in error.

EVANS P.J.

The prohibition act declares it to be unlawful for any person to sell or barter, or give away to induce trade at any place of business, or to keep or furnish at any public place, or manufacture, or keep on hand at their place of business, any alcoholic, spirituous, malt, or intoxicating liquors, or other drinks which if drunk to excess will produce intoxication. Penal Code 1910, § 426. In the tax act of 1909 found in the Civil Code 1910, § 933, a specific tax is imposed upon "every social or fraternal club, or corporation, association, or organization of any persons who shall keep or permit to be kept, in any room or place (or in any place connected therewith directly or indirectly) in which the members of such club, corporation, organization, or association assemble, or frequent, any intoxicating liquors or spirituous or malt liquors of any kind. * * * Provided, that nothing in this section shall be construed to license or permit the keeping of any intoxicating, spirituous, or malt liquors, in any place now prohibited by law, or which may hereafter be so prohibited." These two provisions of law were construed in relation to each other in Union & Mechanics' Club v. Atlanta, 136 Ga. 721, 71 S.E. 1060. In that case it was held that "the specific tax laid by the state upon social and fraternal clubs was imposed, not as a tax upon any business or occupation, but in the exercise of its police power in regulating the storage and use of intoxicating liquors. The exaction of a tax on locker clubs is not a permission to such clubs to do a blind-tiger business, or to evade the liquor laws prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquor. Sales of intoxicating or malt or other drinks which, if drunk to excess, will produce intoxication cannot be legally made at such clubs, since such sales are denounced as criminal by the general prohibition act. The authority to store intoxicating liquor in the clubroom for the use of club members does not embrace permission to sell it, or to use it in any way prohibited by law." The law absolutely prohibits the sale of intoxicating or malt liquors, and it only remains to apply the law to the facts in the case before us.

Certain citizens filed a petition under Civil Code 1910, § 5335, to enjoin the Teutonia Club and its manager from maintaining a nuisance by selling spirituous, malt, or intoxicating liquors in...