Mayhew v. City of Eugene

104 P. 727, 56 Or. 102
CourtOregon Supreme Court
DecidedNovember 9, 1910
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 104 P. 727 (Mayhew v. City of Eugene) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Oregon Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Mayhew v. City of Eugene, 104 P. 727, 56 Or. 102 (Or. 1910).

Opinion

Mr. Justice McBride

delivered the opinion of the court.

1. It is contended that the city of Eugene had no power under its charter to pass the ordinance under which defendant was convicted. Subdivison 8 of section 48 of the city charter of Eugene provides that the city shall have power “to prevent, regulate, prohibit and remove nuisances, and to declare by ordinance what shall constitute the same.” Sp. Laws 1905, p. 251, § 48, subd. 8. Under this power the great weight of authority is to the effect that so long as the definition of a nuisance in a charter is not clearly arbitrary and unjust, and manifestly wrong, the courts will uphold it. 2 Smith’s Modern Law of Municipal Corporations, § 1106, and [106]*106cases there cited. The maintaining in a city of a house for the unlawful sale of liquors or carrying on the business is from its very nature a public nuisance, and the city has a right to so declare it. Meyer v. State, 42 N. J. Law, 145, 156; Hammond v. King, 137 Iowa, 548 (114 N. W. 1062).

2. It is also contended that, the local option law being in force in the city of Eugene, the city has no authority to legislate in any way against the sale of liquor. We have already held that, when local option has been adopted in any city or incorporated town, all laws or ordinances conflicting therewith are suspended.

3. In other words, as long as the State law prohibits an act, the city law previously in force cannot be invoked to permit the same act.

4. There is no conflict between the local option law and the ordinance declaring a place where liquors are sold to be a nuisance. The authorities are conflicting as to whether a municipality can make a crime which is punishable by the laws of the State also an offense against its ordinances; some states — notably Georgia— holding steadfastly that ordinances punishing offenses covered by state laws are inoperative. But there can be no room for doubt that, where the offense against the State is also peculiarly an offense against the peace and good order of the city, ordinances punishing it are valid and will be upheld, if within the terms of the charter. Judge Cooley states the rule as follows: “An act may be a penal offense under the laws of the State, and further penalties, under proper legislative authority, be imposed for its commission by municipal by-laws, and the enforcement of the one would not preclude the enforcement of the other.” Cooley, Consti. Lim. (7 ed.) 279 and notes. This view is controverted in Smith’s Modern Law of Municipal Corporations, but the great weight of authority seems to be with the doctrine enunciated by Cooley. [107]*107Mr. Smith cites Walsh v. City of Union, 13 Or. 589 (11 Pac. 312), as sustaining his contention, and, in fact, gives it the position of a leading case, though a careful reading of that decision indicates that the view of the court was exactly opposite from the view taken by the text-writer. The charter of the city of Union gave the council power to punish any person “who should create any ‘noise or disturbance’ upon any street in the city.” The city passed an ordinance in the following language: “Any person or persons, who shall draw any dangerous or deadly weapon upon the person of another * * shall be punished,” etc. Walsh was arrested upon a complaint charging him with a violation of this ordinance. He was not charged with having made a “noise or disturbance” upon the streets, and the court very properly held that, as the charter had not granted the city power to punish for an assault with a dangerous weapon, the ordinance was void, but they add significantly: “Under an ordinance enacted in pursuance of such power to punish those who should create any disturbance in the streets of the city, etc., it is not doubted but what the conduct alleged in the complaint would be a punishable offense. * * -Nor is this objection made upon the ground that an offense committed against two jurisdictions cannot be punished in each of them.” So the case cited decides these points: (1) That an assault with a dangerous weapon cannot be punished as such under power to punish for “creating a noise or disturbance”; (2) that under a power granted to punish for “creating a noise or disturbance” the city council would have power to include within the matters which go to make such disturbance the act of assaulting another with a dangerous weapon. There is also a distinct intimation that the court did not wish to be understood as holding that a crime could not be committed against two jurisdictions by the same act.

[108]*108Again, it is to be noticed that the local option law is not broad enough to cover the offense for which defendant in this case was tried before the city recorder of Eugene. The offense created by the local option law consists in selling, exchanging, or giving away intoxiinside of a building, is a separate and distinct offense, eating liquors. Each sale, whether upon the street or The ordinance in question goes further, and punishes the carrying on of the unlawful business or devoting any building or premises to that purpose. It is not inconsistent with the State law or subversive to it. It declares the carrying on of the unlawful business a nuisance and punishes it as such.

5. This court will take judicial notice that by the laws of this State the State University is located at Eugene, and while, under all circumstances, ,an unlawful tippling house is undesirable in a community, it is peculiarly so in a college town, where are congregated a large number of young men not under paternal restraint, and separated from • those home influences which make so much for sobriety. A business which might be tolerated in other communities would be an intolerable nuisance in a college town. We conclude, therefore, that the ordinance is authorized by the charter, and, in view of the situation at Eugene, that it is a just and reasonable one.

6. Much of what has been heretofore said applies forcibly to defendant’s next objection, namely, the failure of the court to submit defendant’s plea of former jeopardy to the jury. The offense of making a single sale of liquor-is not identical, and cannot be identical with that of maintaining a nuisance by carrying on the business, and the plea was bad on its face. The intimation in Walsh v. Union, 13 Or. 589 (11 Pac. 312), to the effect that assault with a dangerous weapon might properly be included in an ordinace for making a disturbance on the [109]*109street and punished accordingly is reinforced by the opinion of this court in State v. Stewart, 11 Or. 52, 238 (4 Pac. 128).. Judge Lord, speaking for the court, and quoting from Judge Gray in Morey v. Commonwealth, 108 Mass. 434, says: “The test is not whether the defendant has already been tried for the same act, but whether he has been put in jeopardy for the same offense. A single act may be an offense against two statutes; and, if each statute requires proof of an additional fact, which the other does not, an acquittal or conviction under either statute does not exempt the defendant from prosecution and punishment under the other.” Continuing, Judge Lord says: “The offense charged in the former and in the present case are not only distinct, but the evidence required to support the one would fall far short of establishing the other, and in such a case Mr.

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Bluebook (online)
104 P. 727, 56 Or. 102, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mayhew-v-city-of-eugene-or-1910.