Crittenden v. Town of Booneville

Citations

• 92 Miss. 277
• 45 So. 723

Syllabus

<p>1. Municipalities. Pool rooms. Bight to suppress. Code 1906, § 3340. IAcense tax. Code 1906, §§ 3778, 3893.</p> <p>The operation of billiard tables and pool rooms:</p> <p>(a) Are not wrong per se; and</p> <p>(5) Are by statute, Code 1906, § 3778, made the subject of a license or privilege tax; therefore</p> <p>(c) Code 1906, § 3340, giving municipalities power to regulate and suppress them, only authorizes their prohibition when so conducted as to become a nuisance; although</p> <p>(cl) Code 1906, § 3893, provides that the payment of a license or privilege tax shall not legalize any business.</p> <p>2. Same. Powers strictly construed.</p> <p>Powers delegated to municipalities by the legislature:</p> <p>(a) Are intended to be exercised in conformity to and consistent with the general laws of the state; and</p> <p>(5) Are to be construed most strongly against a right claimed but not clearly given; and</p> <p>(c) An ordinance prohibiting a properly conducted lawful business, the subject of a license tax, is void,</p> <p>3. Prohibition, Writ of. When to he issued.</p> <p>The writ of prohibition is an extraordinary writ to be issued only in ease of extreme necessity, where no other remedy in the ordinary course of judicial procedure is available.</p> <p>4. Same. Code 1906, § 992. Case.</p> <p>Under Code 1906, § 992, authorizing the issuance of remedial writs when necessary to attain right and justice, a petitioner whose place of business has been closed and his property made useless to him by prosecutions for violations of a void municipal ordinance against the operation of his pool room, is entitled to a writ of prohibition, although he has been convicted under the pretended ordinance.</p>