Red Devil Club v. State

307 S.W.2d 627, 1957 Tex. App. LEXIS 2193
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedNovember 18, 1957
Docket6750
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 307 S.W.2d 627 (Red Devil Club v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Red Devil Club v. State, 307 S.W.2d 627, 1957 Tex. App. LEXIS 2193 (Tex. Ct. App. 1957).

Opinion

CHAPMAN, Justice.

This case is an appeal from a temporary injunction in which the court below, upon application of the State of Texas represented by William J. Gillispie, County Attorney of Lubbock County enjoined appellants, “Weldon Curry and Richard Tivis, their servants, agents, and employees from operating, controlling, letting, leasing, and renting the property located in Lubbock County, Texas and known as the Red Devil Club as a place used for and operated as a night club in such a manner as to constitute these premises a common nuisance. That the defendants, Weldon Curry and Richard Tivis, their agents, servants and employees are further temporarily restrained from permitting persons to drink, consume and use intoxicating beverages in any manner on said premises and from permitting any loud, boisterous, and unruly conduct on the part of any person using said premises, and from permitting or allowing any sort of disturbance whatever on said premises, and from permitting said premises to become and to be used as a common nuisance pending final hearing hereon, and the Defendants, and each of them, their agents, servants, and employees are temporarily enjoined and restrained from leasing, letting, using, operating, and controlling any business upon said premises for any unlawful purposes.”

The appellants assign as errors the issuance of a temporary injunction “which failed to define with reasonable certainty the acts prohibited, which exceeded constitutional and statutory authority, and which failed to state reasons for its issuance, as required by law; the error of the trial court in overruling the Appellant’s Special Exceptions to Plaintiff’s Amended Petition; the error of the trial court in granting temporary injunction on insufficient pleadings; the error of the trial court in granting a temporary injunction on insufficient evidence.”

In its brief appellee, The State of Texas, admits the court below granted injunctive relief more inclusive than that sought, ad *629 mits it is not entitled to a temporary injunction against appellants, except to enjoin them from operating the Red Devil Club in such manner as to permit persons to drink, consume and use intoxicating beverages between the hours prohibited by the Liquor Control Act and requests that the judgment of the court below be so reformed, and as reformed affirmed.

Under numerous authorities cited by appellant, which, in view of appellee’s admissions we deem unnecessary to cite in this opinion, the order of the court below was without sufficient pleadings, and evidence of probative value, to justify some of the prohibitions enumerated in the order granting temporary injunction and was too indefinite in reciting some of the prohibitions. However, it is our view of the case that the pleadings and evidence were sufficient upon which the court below might find the place a common nuisance and temporarily enjoin appellants from operating the club in such manner as to permit persons to drink, consume, and use alcoholic beverages on the premises and that the verbiage in this respect was explicit enough in the Order Granting Temporary Injunction for that purpose. Arts. 666-4 (c), (1), 666-29, Vernon’s Ann.P.C.

Appellees alleged that appellants "have, for an extended period of time immediately preceding the filing of this petition, engaged in the business of a night club at the here-inabove mentioned Red Devil Club in Lubbock County, Texas, and that said night club is a place to which the public commonly resort for business or pleasure and to which persons resort in assembling for the purposes of drinking intoxicating liquor in violation of Art. 666 of the Texas Penal Code, that maintaining said night club where persons resort for the purpose of drinking intoxicating liquor constitutes maintaining a nuisance within the purview of Art. 4664, Vernon’s Texas Civil Statutes, and Art. 666 of the Texas Penal Code.” The State further pleaded that the club was operated from midnight into the early morning hours, that the owners knew, or by the exercise of reasonable diligence should have known that the consumption of intoxicating beverages was being carried on in said club and that defendants would continue the operation of such nuisance unless enjoined.

Appellant asserts that Art. 4664, V.T.C.S. pleaded by appellees has been repealed by the enactment of Art. 666-1 et seq., P.C. and therefore their allegations that the acts of the operators of the club constituted a nuisance within the purview of said article should have been stricken. To this contention we agree and appellee in its brief so agreed. State v. Parker, 147 Tex. 57, 212 S.W.2d 132.

Though the court below should have granted appellants exceptions to the pleadings in connection with Art. 4664, we do not believe it was such error as to justify reversal. Appellants could not possibly have been harmed by such action of the court in a hearing before the court for a temporary injunction, since the pleadings were .sufficient upon which to declare the Red Devil Club a common nuisance and enjoin appellants from operating it in such manner as to permit persons to drink, consume, and use alcoholic beverages in violation of Art. 666, P.C.

Appellant insists that the court’s order granting temporary injunction was not sufficient for the reason that it used the term “intoxicating beverages” whereas the statute uses the terms “alcoholic beverages” and “intoxicating liquor.” “Beverages” is defined by Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary as “liquid for drinking; drink.” “Alcohol” is defined by the same authority as * * * “the intoxicating principle in fermented and distilled liquors.” “Intoxicating” is defined by Funk and Wag-nails New Standard Dictionary 1927 as “producing intoxication or feeling like those of intoxication.” “Intoxication” is then defined as “the act of making drunk, or the state of being drunk, inebriation; drunkenness.” We believe and so hold that *630 such contention is without merit and that the use of the term “intoxicating beverages” was so synonymous with the term “alcoholic beverage” as to be clear enough to apprise the appellants of what they were enjoined from doing.

Art. 666-29, where it is material to the temporary injunction under consideration here, provides: “any room, building, boat, structure, or place of any kind where alcoholic beverages are * * * consumed in violation of this Act, * * * are declared to be a common nuisance.”

Subdivision (c) (1) of Art. 666-4 provides :

“It shall be unlawful for any person to consume any alcoholic beverage in any public place, or for any person to possess any alcoholic beverage in any public place for the purpose of consuming the same in such public place, at any time on Sunday between the hours of 1:IS a.m. and 1:00 o’clock p. m., and on all other days at any time between the hours of 12:15 a.m. and 7:00 o’clock a.m.”

Appellant Curry testified as follows:

“Q. What time do you operate this club, this Red Devil Club, Mr. Curry? A. I open at midnight and operate until three or four o’clock in the morning.
“Q. Three or four o’clock in the morning? You don’t have any set time to close it down ? A. Always by four o’clock.
“Q. Always by four o’clock? A. Yes, sir.
“Q.

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Bluebook (online)
307 S.W.2d 627, 1957 Tex. App. LEXIS 2193, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/red-devil-club-v-state-texapp-1957.