Sayre Borough v. Phillips

Citations

• 148 Pa. 482
• 24 A. 76
• 1892 Pa. LEXIS 1006

Syllabus

<p>[Marked to be reported.]</p> <p>Municipalities — Boroughs—Police power.</p> <p>By the organization of a city or borough within its borders, the state imparts to its creature, the municipality, the powers necessary to the performance of its functions and to the protection of its citizens in their persons or property. The police power is one of these. Ordinances of cities and boroughs passed in the legitimate exercise of this power are therefore valid.</p> <p>Peddling — Municipal control — License—Police regulation.</p> <p>The business of peddlinghas been treated as a proper subject for police regulation and control in this state since 1784. Such regulation is an exercise of the police power, and as such is within the scope of municipal control.</p> <p>Such regulation must be directed against the business or practice of peddling, and not against some of the persons who may be engaged in it. If a statute or municipal ordinance is so framed as to discriminate between the persons engaged in the same trade or pursuit, such statute or ordinance is not a police but a trade regulation, and therefore invalid.</p> <p>An ordinance of the borough of Sayre prohibited all persons from engaging in the business of peddling, or selling goods from house to house, by sample or otherwise, without a borough license, and fixed the price of such license at a figure evidently intended to be prohibitive. By a proviso all residents of the borough of Sayre were exempted from the operation of the ordinance:</p> <p>Held, That such an ordinance was invalid.</p> <p>Constitutional law — Citizens of different states — Interstate commerce— Constitution of the United States, article IV, section 2;' article I, section 8.</p> <p>An ordinance that should prohibit all persons peddling goods manufactured or produced in other states, and permit the same persons to peddle goods of the same character manufactured or produced in this state, or which should prohibit nonresidents from engaging in such a busin