Vanoli v. Munro

• Decision Date: 26 December 1956
• Citation: 147 Cal.App.2d 179,304 P.2d 722
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: Charles H. VANOLI and Joseph F. Vanoll and Paul Parmiani, Petitioners and Appellants, v. Russell S. MUNRO, Director of Alcoholic Beverage Control of the State of California, Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control of the State of California, and Jerry M. O'Brien, District Liquor Control Administrator of the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control of the State of California, Respondents. Civ. 17080.

Page 722

304 P.2d 722

147 Cal.App.2d 179

Charles H. VANOLI and Joseph F. Vanoll and Paul Parmiani, Petitioners and Appellants, v. Russell S. MUNRO, Director of Alcoholic Beverage Control of the State of California, Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control of the State of California, and Jerry M. O'Brien, District Liquor Control Administrator of the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control of the State of California, Respondents.

Civ. 17080.

District Court of Appeal, First District, Division 1, California.

Dec. 26, 1956.

John G. Evans, San Francisco, for appellants Charles H. Vanoli, Joseph F. Vanoli and Paul Parmiani.

Edmund G. Brown, Atty. Gen., Charles A. Barrett, Deputy Atty. Gen., for respondents.

PETERS, Presiding Justice.

The appellants are the holders of offsale liquor licenses attached to premises located near Stanford University. The State Board of Equalization found that such premises were located so near the Stanford campus as to violate the law, and ordered the licenses indefinitely suspended. This was affirmed by the Appeal Board. The Superior Court denied a petition for a writ of mandate, and entered its judgment accordingly. From that judgment the license holders appeal.

The sole question presented is whether the premises operated by appellants are within one and one-half miles of the Stanford campus within the meaning of section 172a of the Penal Code. If so, the licenses were properly suspended.

Section 172a of the Penal Code provides, in part: 'Every person who, upon or within one and one-half miles of the university grounds or campus, upon which are located the principal administrative offices of any university having an enrollment of more than 1,000 students, more than 500 of whom reside or lodge upon such university grounds or campus, sells, gives away or exposes for sale, any intoxicating liquor, is guilty of a misdemeanor * * *.' ¹

Stanford University owns some 9,000 acres of land in Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties. In 1918, and again in 1934, the Board of Trustees of Stanford designated 1,054 acres of this area 'as the official campus boundary that was set aside for educational purposes.' There is a concrete monument now located at the southeast corner of that 1,054-acre tract. A recent survey in which measurements were taken from that monument proved that the premises of the appellants are located within one and one-half miles of this monument, the measurements having been taken in a straight line from the monument. Appellant Parmiani's premises are located 33 feet within one and one-half miles of the monument, while appellant Vanoli's premises lie 472 feet within the statutory limit.

Appellants do not contend that their premises are not within a mile and one-half of the monument. ² Their claim is that, included within the 1,054-acre tract, are four plots of land which are not part of the 'university grounds or campus' as those terms are used in section 172a of the Penal Code. These four plots are located between the premises of appellant and the actual administrative buildings of the university. The question involved is whether these four plots are properly included within the campus area within the meaning of section 172a.

The four plots are contiguous. Plot number one is farthest from the concrete monument. It begins at San McDonald Road and runs for 377 feet along El Camino Real. There are no buildings on this lot. It has two uses: It is used for intermural athletics, and for parking automobiles during football games. Plot number two has a frontage of 410 feet on El Camino Real. It has no buildings on it but has some hitching racks to which the extra polo ponies are hitched during polo games. The third plot runs about 460 feet along El Camino Real. This lot is used for three purposes--it is the polo field; it is used by the Department of Athletics for golf instruction; and it is used for parking automobiles during football games. The fourth plot extends for about 627 feet along El Camino Real and ends at the concrete monument here under discussion. On this plot is a cottage, shed and barn. The cottage is occupied as a residence by some of the cashiers employed at the University. '[A]ctually this residence * * * was for many years used as a part of the operation of the university.' The whole plot is sparsely covered with trees, and occasionally the Superintendent of the athletic grounds cuts the volunteer hay that grows on it.

It is appellants' main contention that none of the four plots between Sam McDonald Road and the concrete monument are properly part of the 'university grounds or campus, upon which are located the principal administrative offices of any university' as those terms are used in section 172a of the Penal Code.

It should be noted that the 1,054 acres designated by the Board of Trustees 'as the official campus' in 1918 and 1934, and which include the four lots above described, is an undivided area, and that the 'principal administrative offices' of Stanford are located on this 1,054 acres. It should also be noted that all parties to this appeal agree that the one and one-half miles noted in section 172a is to be measured from the boundary of the campus 'upon which are located the principal administrative offices' of Stanford, and that such measurement is to be by air line from such boundary. See Board of Trustees v. State Bd. of Equalization, 1 Cal.2d 784, 37 P.2d 84, 96 A.L.R. 775; Gunn v. State Board of Equalization, 123 Cal.App.2d 283, 266 P.2d 840.

In support of their contention that the 1,054-acre area includes lands not within the purview of section 172a, appellants place their main reliance on Petition of Burke, 160 Cal. 300, 116 P. 755. That case held section 172a to be constitutional under the police power, and also held that there were certain, though quite indefinite, limits to the 'campus' contemplated by the code section. In so holding, the court stated, 160 Cal. at page 305, 116 P. at page 756: "Principal administrative offices' is not a fortunate phrase in a penal law such as this, since very clearly it requires construction. * * * The phrase is used as descriptive of the character of the grounds or campus to which the penal law is made to apply. It is not made to apply to university grounds or a university campus generally. Thus, treating of the University of California, it would not apply to its subordinate grounds, where special educational activities were in progress. It would not apply to the Lick Observatory. It would not apply to the Affiliated Colleges. It would not apply to its agricultural stations, but would apply only to those grounds and that campus which form the center of its activities, and where, because they are the center of its activities, the 'principal administrative offices,' within the meaning of the law, must be located. In this sense the 'principal administrative offices' does not mean those offices and those activities through which the university, as an institution, is organized and financed. It means the principal place of business of the university as a university, where the principal educational functions of the university are carried out. So construed, the law means to limit the inhibition upon the sale of liquor to what we may designate the university proper, and the language is so chosen to avoid any possible application of the law to any outlying grounds or campuses, and, so construed, there is nothing unreasonable in the phrase 'principal administrative offices."

It is contended by appellants that the four plots here under discussion are 'outlying,' or 'subordinate' grounds within the meaning of the Burke case.

Respondents place considerable reliance on the case of Board of Trustees v. State Bd. of Equalization, 1 Cal.2d 784, 37 P.2d 84, 96 A.L.R. 775, which involved the proper application of section 172a to the campus of Stanford. In that case, over the protests of the Board of Trustees, a liquor permit was granted to a drug store in Palo Alto. This authorization was cancelled by the Supreme Court on the ground that the drug store was within the mile and a half limit fixed by section 172a. It was stipulated by the parties that the drug store was .7 of a mile in the usual course of...