Aliotta v. City of Chicago

59 N.E.2d 829, 389 Ill. 418, 1945 Ill. LEXIS 493
CourtIllinois Supreme Court
DecidedJanuary 17, 1945
DocketNo. 28349. Decree affirmed.
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 59 N.E.2d 829 (Aliotta v. City of Chicago) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Illinois Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Aliotta v. City of Chicago, 59 N.E.2d 829, 389 Ill. 418, 1945 Ill. LEXIS 493 (Ill. 1945).

Opinion

Mr. Justice; Gunn

delivered the opinion of the court:

Appellant, Frank Aliotta, and forty-five others, who own and operate barber shops in the city of Chicago, filed their complaint in chancery on behalf of themselves and of others similarly situated, to enjoin the city from enforcing an ordinance providing for the licensing and regulation of barbers and barbershops in the city, and to enjoin the defendant and its officials from prosecuting certain quasi-criminal actions against individual barbers for failing to pay license fees under said ordinance, and to declare said ordinance void for want of power in the city to enact it, and because it is vague, uncertain and indefinite in vital respects. The city and its officials filed a motion to strike and dismiss the complaint, which was allowed by the court, and, the plaintiffs having elected to abide by the complaint, the suit was dismissed. The plaintiffs’ motion for a temporary injunction was also denied. The chancellor certified the validity of a municipal ordinance was involved, and in his opinion the public interest required that an appeal be taken directly to the Supreme Court.

The ordinance licensing and regulating barbershops was enacted December 15, 1943. It defines barbershops; it requires a license to operate one; it exacts a license fee based upon the number of barber chairs used in the licensed premises; fixes the amount of the license fee per chair; makes provision for sanitary requirements, location of shops, and periodic inspections, and provides penalties for violation of any of its provisions.

The first and most vigorous contention made by appellants is that the city is without power to pass an ordinance regulating barbers, because the State of Illinois has fully occupied the field by the enactment by the General Assembly, in 1937, of a statute in relation to the practice of barbering, which delegates to the Department of Registration and Education the power to adopt reasonable rules providing for sanitary regulation of barbershops and barber schools, with other measures for the sanitary regulation thereof, and that such Department has adopted a set of rules which are detailed and complete, requiring payment of registration fees, and that the licensing and regulation by the State were intended to fully occupy the field of licensing and regulating barbers and barbershops, and thereby repealed any power which the General Assembly might previously have granted to municipalities. Appellants rely very largely upon the case of City of Chicago v. Jensen, 331 Ill. 129, where it was held that the enactment by the General Assembly of a statute regulating beauty culture operated to deprive the city of Chicago of the right to license beauty parlors.

. The history of barbershop legislation is as follows:. In 1909 the legislature enacted a law regulating and licensing barbers. (Laws of 1909, p. 98.) This was amended in 1929 and again in 1935. In 1937, an act revising the law in relation to barbers was enacted, and the act of 1909 repealed. (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1397, chap. 16^, par. 14.1 et seq.) The law of 1909 covered substantially the same features as that of 1937, except the latter went into greater detail. Prior to 1935 there was no statute expressly authorizing a city to license or regulate barbers, but in that year the powers of the city were extended, under which a city was given the authority to “tax, license and regulate * * * barbers, and barber shops.” (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1935* chap. 24, par. 65(91).) It is the contention of appellants that the statute of 1937, completely revising and re-enacting the act of 1909 relating to barbers, disclosed an intention upon the part of the legislature to recall the authority given to cities and villages to license, tax and regulate under the law of 1935, and to thereby repeal such last-mentioned statute by implication.

It seems to us that this contention cannot be determined without examining further legislation on the subject in the Revised Cities and Villages Act of 1941. In this act, by section 23-91, the power of the city to tax and regulate certain occupations is again granted in the following language : “To license, tax and regulate auctioneers, * * * barbers, * * * and the keepers or owners of * * * barber shops.” (Laws of 1941, vol. 2, p. 177.) The point made by appellants that the General Assembly, as in point of time, has given the regulation of barbers and barbershops to the State, subsequent to the granting of a like authority to the city, is not, in fact, accurate.

This contention fails to take into consideration section 87-1 of the Revised Cities and Villages Act, which provides: “The provisions of this act shall be cumulative in effect, and if any provision is inconsistent with another provision of this Act or with any other Act not expressly repealed by section 87-4 it shall be considered as an alternative or additional power and not as a limitation upon any other power granted to or possessed by municipalities.” (Laws of 1941, vol. 2, p. 399.) The act of 1937, revising the law in relation to barbers is not repealed by section 87-4 of the Revised Cities and Villages Act, and therefore, under the provisions of section 87-1, section 23-91, if inconsistent with the Barbers Act of 1937, shall be considered as an alternative or additional power granted to, or possessed by, municipalities.

These statutory provisions negative the theory that the power of the city to license or regulate barbers has been repealed by the act of 1937. Section 2 of the act relating to construction of statutes (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1943, chap. 131, par. 2,) providing that a re-enactment of a former statute, as far as it is the same, shall not be considered a new enactment, does not apply, for the reason that, while the barber provision in the 1941 Revised Cities and Villages Act is the same as that found in the laws of 1935, it has, in addition, attached and read into it a part thereof that, in case of conflict, the provision in the later act shall be considered either as an alternative or additional power. This renders the consideration of the cases cited by appellants on this proposition unnecessary. It might be remarked, however, that in each of the cases of City of Chicago v. Jensen, 331 Ill. 129, Wilkie v. City of Chicago, 188 Ill. 444, and City of Chicago v. Burke, 226 Ill. 191, what had been done by the city was not under an express grant but under general powers, which were held to be no longer effective because the General Assembly had enacted laws vesting in the State of Illinois complete authority over the particular subject. There was not present in any of these cases a special grant to the city, and a like grant of power to the State. There was clear repugnance in those cases; there is no' repugnancy in this case.

The regulation of barbershops comes under the general police-power. (People v. Logan, 284 Ill. 83.) It has many times been held that a municipality may exercise police power concurrently with the State. (City of Chicago v. Union Ice Cream Mfg. Co. 252 Ill. 311; Chicago Cosmetic Co. v. City of Chicago, 374 Ill. 384; Crackerjack Co. v City of Chicago, 330 Ill. 320.) Repeals by implication are not favored. (City of Chicago v. Hastings Express Co. 369 Ill. 610.) The statutory provisions pointed out above, in conjunction with these principles, clearly disclose that the power granted the cities and villages to license, tax and regulate barbers and barbershops has not been repealed.

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59 N.E.2d 829, 389 Ill. 418, 1945 Ill. LEXIS 493, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/aliotta-v-city-of-chicago-ill-1945.