Ex parte Theisen

Citations

• 30 Fla. 529

Syllabus

<p>1. The provisional municipality of the city of Pensacola can exercise the same general powers conferred on cities and towns by Section 696, Revised Statutes, to regulate and restrain all tippling, bar-rooms, and all places where beer, wine or spirituous liquor of any kind is sold at retail, or to be drank upon the premises where sold, but this section must be construed in connection with Sections 865, 866, and 867 Revised Statutes, regulating the manner of obtaining a permit and license to retail liquors, wines or beer.</p> <p>2. Sections 865, 866 and 867 Revised Statutes, provide a test as the personal fitness of the applicant to engage in the business of retailing liquors, wines or beer in counties and districts where the right to sell has not been denied by vote under the local option provisions in Sections 857 to 864, Revised Statutes ,*. and the foregoing provisions apply to election districts within the limits of municipal corporations, as well as to those entirely beyond such limits.</p> <p>3. An ordinance of a municipal corporation, that no license for the-sale of malt or alcoholic drinks shall be used within four hundred and fifty feet of any school or established church at the time said license was granted, without the consent of the-council of said municipal body, is void in this, that it permits of an arbitrary discrimination by said council as to personal fitness to engage in the business of retailing, a matter exclusively under statutory regulation.</p>