Wilder v. State

• Decision Date: 18 June 1974
• Docket Number: No. 28872,28872
• Citation: 207 S.E.2d 38,232 Ga. 404
• Parties: Edwin Houston WILDER v. The STATE.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

Page 38

207 S.E.2d 38

232 Ga. 404

Edwin Houston WILDER v. The STATE.

No. 28872.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

June 18, 1974.

Cory, Del Bello & Dowling, Robert A. Del Bello, Atlanta, for appellant.

Hinson McAuliffe, Sol., Frank A. Bowers, James L. Webb, Atlanta, for appellee.

Syllabus Opinion by the Court

HALL, Justice.

State regulation of billiard rooms comes under constitutional attack in this appeal.

Wilder, accused of operating a billiard room on Sunday in violation of Code § 84-1610 ¹ (Ga.L.1925, pp. 286, 288) demurred to the accusation on the ground that the statute violated the equal protection guaranties of the United States and Georgia Constitutions. His demurrer was overruled, and he appeals with a certificate of immediate review. He argues, first, that the above cited statute requiring that billiard rooms be closed at night and on Sunday is unconstitutional because under Code § 84-1616 ² (Ga.L.1925, pp. 286, 290) certain categories of billiard rooms are exempted. The differing treatment accorded these operators is claimed not to be supported by a reasonable classification. Wilder's second equal protection argument is that when Code § 84-1610 is compared to Code Ann. §§ 106-801 and 106-802 (Ga.L.1949, pp. 1007, 1008) which allow the Sunday operation of motion picture theatres and athletic events, games and contests if the sponsor obtains a permit, again the legislature is found to have created an invidious classification without a rational relationship to the end sought to be achieved.

Wilder does not dispute that it has long been established in Georgia that the operation of public billiard rooms is a business which by its nature comes within the state's police power. Shaver v. Martin, 166 Ga. 424, 143 S.E. 402; Beaty v. Richardson, 164 Ga. 185, 138 S.E. 54. See also Annots., 20 A.L.R. 1482; 29 A.L.R. 41; 53 A.L.R. 149; 72 A.L.R. 1339. Billiard rooms as well as other enterprises may be prohibited from operating on Sunday because the legislature might reasonably have concluded that their operation was inconsistent with the establishment of a weekly day of rest, recreation, and tranquility. See McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U.S. 420, 81 S.Ct. 1101, 6 L.Ed.2d 393. See generally, Annot., 24 A.L.R.2d 814, 825, § 7. Therefore, the legislative treatment of billiard rooms here considered does not exceed the state's power to regulate, unless the legislative classifications are determined to be invidious in that they do not have a rational relation to the object of the legislation. See Levy v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 68, 88 S.Ct. 1509, 10 L.Ed.2d 436.

The validity of the state's classifications here does not depend upon their absolute correctness nor upon the absence of any under- or over-inclusiveness in the categories drawn. Nor must we necessarily agree with the soundness of the distinction maintained by the statutory scheme. If the legislative purpose is legitimate and the classification drawn has some reasonable relation to furthering that purpose, the classification passes muster. A classification even though discriminatory, is not a violation of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment if any state of facts reasonably may be conceived that would sustain it. McGowan v. Maryland, supra, 366 U.S. 420, 426, 81 S.Ct. 1101, 6 L.Ed.2d 393, supra; Safeway Stores, Inc. v. Oklahoma Retail Grocers Assn., 360 U.S. 334, 79 S.Ct. 1196, 3 L.Ed.2d 1280. To the extent to which Wilder urges that perfect fairness and non-discrimination are required to sustain the legislature's classifications, he overestimates the stringency of the equal protection test as applied to state police power regulations governing economic matters.

No genuine question is raised here concerning the validity of the legislative purpose in regulating the operating hours of billiard rooms. Our question is whether the exclusion from the regulation of the entities specified in Code § 84-1616 is reasonably related to the accomplishment of the purpose. Our test is whether the legislature might within reason have concluded (regardless of whether such conclusion seems in our view right or wrong) that a state of facts exists upon which the line of discrimination it has drawn marks genuinely differing classes of billiards-playing. Wilder urges that the excluded entities comprise no class, because they had no common characteristic. We disagree, finding that Code § 84-1616, excluding from the statutory restrictions the designated entities 'using such tables for members or employees only' draws a reasonable classification because use by members or employees constitutes use by persons who have a common associational tie with each other, or a community of interest and activity over and beyond their common desire to play at billiards. If the legislature has concluded-and it has-that that social evils to be feared from the operation of a commercial billiards parlor admitting all comers possessing the price of a game, are not to be feared from the playing at billiards of individuals who are all members or employees of a single, sponsoring entity, we are not prepared to say that such a conclusion is unreasonable; for the former may be thought to pose all the hazards of the typical pool hall whereas the latter may be thought to provide wholesome recreation among persons who will govern their behavior at billiards in recognition of their pre- existing relationship to each other. This latter group, in effect, may be thought to be playing a 'friendly game', and the legislature may reasonably conclude that during nights and on Sundays the public tranquility will best be served by allowing only such friendly games to proceed. This conclusion is also consistent with the principle that 'the ordinance is not aimed at the game, but at the place.' Murphy v. California, 225 U.S. 623, 629, 32 S.Ct....