Baldwin v. Smith

Citations

• 82 Ill. 162

Syllabus

<p>1. License—to keep dram shop subject to ordinances of town granting. Although there may be no condition in a license to keep a dram shop granted by a town, nor any reference to any ordinances of the town, yet such license will be held to have been granted subject to such ordinances of the town as had a legal existence at the time it was granted, and such as were within the competency of the town authorities to enact.</p> <p>2. Same—power to revoke does not authorize depriving licensee of use of his property by force. Where an ordinance of a town provides that in certain cases the town council may revoke license granted hy them to keep dram shops, and it shall be the duty of the town constable to immediately close up the grocery of the licensee, the town authorities have no power to oust the keeper of the dram shop from his premises hy force, take and hold possession of the same, and thus deprive him of the use of his property.</p> <p>3. Dram shops—can not be closed by force. Any ordinance or law which authorizes the authorities of a town to close a saloon or grocery by force, without having it first judicially declared a nuisance, and ordered to he abated, is unconstitutional.</p>