Cochran's License

Citations

• 47 Pa. Super. 376
• 1911 Pa. Super. LEXIS 165

Syllabus

<p>Liquor laws — Distiller’s license — Refusal of license — Discretion of court — Order of court.</p> <p>1. An applicant for a distiller’s license has no absolute right to a license although complying with the statutory requirements, but he has a right to a hearing and decision on his application. When the court has heard and decided its whole duty is performed. The license judge is not required to give reasons for his decision.</p> <p>2. Where the license judge hears in open court an application for a distiller’s license and the remonstrances against it and thereafter makes the following order “after hearing and upon due consideration, the license as prayed for is refused,” the appellate court will not review the judge’s discretion, nor reverse the order. Nor will such an order be reversed because the license judge eleven days after the order had been made voluntarily filed reasons for his order to the effect that “under the evidence and the facts within his own knowledge, among which was that the applicant’s proposed distillery would be located in the immediate vicinity of many mills and industrial plants employing many men, and that the applicant intended to sell by the gallon to consumers, — it was a wise exercise of his discretion and his duty to refuse said license.”</p> <p>3. Even if an insufficient reason be given, among others, by a license judge in refusing a license it is not to be presumed that all others moving the court to a judicious conclusion, in the exercise of his discretion, are without merit.</p>