In Re Bond

107 P. 143, 12 Cal. App. 255, 1909 Cal. App. LEXIS 16
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedDecember 20, 1909
DocketCrim. No. 155.
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 107 P. 143 (In Re Bond) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In Re Bond, 107 P. 143, 12 Cal. App. 255, 1909 Cal. App. LEXIS 16 (Cal. Ct. App. 1909).

Opinion

THE COURT.

Petitioner was found guilty of violating a prohibitory liquor ordinance of the city of Upland and sentenced to pay a fine of fifty dollars; with the alternative of imprisonment of one day for each dollar of fine. On application of his attorney to this court a writ was issued against the city marshal of Upland, in whose custody petitioner was detained, and the matter is before us for hearing upon the sufficiency of the petition.

The complaint and a stipulated statement of the evidence upon which the conviction was had are made part of the petition. The complaint charges that the defendant did . . . willfully and unlawfully sell, furnish, distribute, deliver and give away, and for a long time prior thereto had been willfully and unlawfully selling, furnishing, distributing and giving away, spirituous and malt intoxicating liquors, to wit, whisky and beer. The portion of the ordinance necessary to be considered here reads: “Section 1. Any person, firm, corporation, club, or association that within the city of Upland, -California, establishes, keeps, opens, maintains or carries on a place where spirituous, vinous or malt, or mixed liquors, or any alcoholic or any intoxicating drink or drinks, or so-called temperance beer, containing alcohol in any quantity whatever, are sold, kept for sale, offered for sale, furnished, distributed, divided, delivered, drunk or given away; or, that within said city, either as owner, employee, agent, servant, clerk, or otherwise, sells, keeps for sale, offers for sale, furnishes, distributes, divides, delivers, or gives away,- any spirituous, vinous, malt or mixed liquors, or any alcoholic or intoxicating drink or drinks, or so-called temperance beer containing alcohol in any quantity whatever, except as herein provided, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor.” The exception relates to sales for medical and mechanical purposes.

The petition shows that the defendant is -a member of a secret society organized in Upland and incorporated in this state under the name of the “Protective Brotherhood of the Alamo”; the purposes of the order, as set forth in the articles *257 •of incorporation, are: “To promote charities, moral and social ■ethics, fratemalism, righteous citizenship, the brotherhood of its members and benevolence to all mankind. To encourage useful and. profitable industries,' to provide amusements, athletic sports, libraries, reading-rooms, cafes, social halls and •club-rooms for its members. To provide for sick and disabled members and the families of deceased members. To organize", •charter, equip and institute subordinate lodges of the Protective Brotherhood of the Alamo, in this and other states. 'To purchase, store and distribute goods, wares cmd supplies for its members and the subordinate lodges of the Order.” The organization leased and occupied a building formerly used as a hotel, and therein, in addition to lodge-rooms, club-rooms, including parlors, reception-rooms, library and reading-rooms, banquet hall, dining-room, sleeping apartments ■and committee-rooms, maintained a bar from which members of the organization only were furnished with spirituous, ■vinous and malt liquors, for which there had been procured .a United States retail liquor license. The method of disbursing the liquors, which was ordinarily attended to by a ■steward, was as follows: Any member who wished to become ■a patron of the bar deposited (presumably with the steward) such sum as he desired to invest in a ticket or tickets, bearing upon the face the figure 5 or a series of 5’s, representing at five cents per figure the amount paid or deposited. Upon ordering liquors or other supplies, if any such were included, the number of 5’s on the ticket which represented the value of the purchase, the figures being taken at a valuation of five cents each, were punched by the person delivering the goods. Thus, for a glass of beer, valued at five cents, one figure would be punched, and for a drink of whisky, valued at ten ■cents, two figures would be punched. No money passed directly at the time the liquor or supplies were received by the patron, but an order blank directing the board of directors to purchase for the member who bought the ticket certain specified supplies, liquors, lodgings, meals, cigars, etc., specified thereon, was signed and delivered at the' time of the ’“deposit” for the ticket. To show that the organization was a bona fide fraternal and secret society, a showing is made of rfche value of the furniture and fixtures, lodge-room accessories *258 and supplies on hand, mating an aggregate of $4,500. The vinous and malt liquors totaled only $16.50, each of the other supplies named having a greater value; even mineral waters reaching an aggregate of $37.50.

Amid these surroundings the defendant, in the absence of the steward, furnished and delivered to various members of said corporation holding the above-mentioned tickets, both beer and whisky, punching and canceling ■ their respective tickets in the manner above described. The beer and whisky so furnished and delivered by defendant was taken and furnished from the common stock kept on hand by said corporation for the purpose of serving to members, on demand, holding tickets regularly issued, and was not the individual, separate property of the persons to whom defendant served the-same.

We are satisfied that the ordinance is broad enough in its. terms to include the selling or giving away of intoxicating-liquors, whether at a place of business or not. The two clauses-of section 1 of the ordinance are stated in the disjunctive, the first relating to the keeping of a place and the second to a. sale, gift or distribution by any person, either “as owner, employee, agent, servant, clerk, or otherwise.” That one sale may be a violation of the second clause is supported by the leading opinion in Ex parte Fedderwitz (Cal.), 62 Pac. 935, 940. The ordinance before the court in that case, like the-one here, was a prohibitory as distinguished from a license ordinance. Like this, also, it contained one clause applying-to the keeping of a place of business, and another relating to the selling, offering for sale, and giving away of intoxicating liquors. Reviewing the opinion in Merced Co. v. Helm, 102 Cal. 159, [36 Pac. 399], in which it was said that a single sale did not constitute a violation of the ordinance thereunder consideration, Beatty, C. J., in the Fedderwitz opinion, says: “But that case has no bearing on the proposition. That was a civil action to recover a license which was imposed, and could only be imposed, for the privilege of conducting the business.” A single sale was there held not to be carrying on the business in the sense of a license law. “It does not follow from this, however, that a single sale may not constitute a crime, if the ordinance so provides, 'as this clearly does.” It was also held in that case that the power to pass. *259 an ordinance such as the one before ns is unquestionably conferred by section 11 of article XI of the constitution of the state. Speaking with reference to earlier cases distinguished, it is said: “It was not decided or intimated that a prohibition of single sales was beyond the power of the municipality.

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Bluebook (online)
107 P. 143, 12 Cal. App. 255, 1909 Cal. App. LEXIS 16, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-bond-calctapp-1909.