Petitfils v. Town of Jeanerette

Citations

• 52 La. Ann. 1005

Syllabus

<p>Syllabus.</p> <p>1. In Article 206 of the Constitution of 1879 it was declared that “no political corporation shall impose a greater license tax than is imposed by the General Assembly for State purposes”.</p> <p>This constitutional provision was removed by Article 229 of the Constitution of 1S98, so far as licenses upon dealers in distilled alcoholic or malt lisuors were concerned, but the adoption of this Article, while it left the General Assembly free by general law to confer upon political corporations the power of imposing upon dealers of that peculiar description higher licenses than those imposed by the State, did not have the effect pro facto of conferring such power upon political corporations which in the statutes creating them had been expressly restricted in the power of license taxation therein granted them to licenses not to exceed those of the State.</p> <p>The withdrawal of the constitutional restriction did not enlarge the limited grants of powers given to them by the Legislature.</p> <p>It required legislative action for that purpose and an extension of their powers in this respect was in fact given by the 16th Section of Act No. 171 of 189S. (Mayor and Council of Alexandria vs. White, 46th Ann., 451; Railroad vs. Town of Kentwood, 49th Ann., 933.)</p> <p>2. It being admitted that none of the dealers in distilled alcoholic or malt liquors in the town of Jeanerette would fail into a class higher than the 8th, or lowest class in the State’s classification for liquor licenses, those dealers are in no wise injured by the town council’s not adopting a classification of licenses to cover dealers falling into the State’s upper classes, nor have they any ground of complaint that the town did not adopt a classification for licenses extending downward below the lowest class adopted by the State for State purposes.</p>