State ex rel. Bash v. County Commissioners

Citations

• 20 Fla. 425

Syllabus

<p>1. The act of March 8, 1888, to regulate the sale of intoxicating liquors, wines and beer, provides that an applicant for a license shall present a petition asking the Board of County Commissioners to grant the right “ to sell such liquors, wines or beer.” A petition asking for a license “to sell spirituous or intoxicating liquors, wines and beer,” is a good and sufficient form of application under the act.</p> <p>2. That law imposes upon the County Commissioners the duty to act upon a petition for a license to sell intoxicating liquors, and if such application is properly signed, authenticated and published, they should grant it. They have no discretion or authority to prohibit the sale of liquors by refusing to act upon a proper petition.</p> <p>8. If the law bad failed to require tlie Board of Commissioners to act upon such applications, it would have been totally inoperative to accomplish its expressed object. “Courts, in construing a statute, should, so far as the language will admit, give such a construction as will make it practicable, just and reasonably convenient.”</p> <p>4. A petition for a license signed by less than the majority of voters of die district was denied. At the ensuing regular meeting an additional number of names, thus making a majority, was affixed to the original petition on file and the whole duly authenticated and published : Held, That though courts would consider such signing of a paper already on file in judicial proceedings irregular, yet in transacting the ordinary business of the community by plain people in a simple manner the strict rules of courts should not be enforced, no fraud being imputed. And if the petitioner shows that a majority have expressed themselves it is oi no consequence whether the additional names are signed to the original or to an additional petition of the same import.</p> <p>5. When a petition for license to sell liquors, signed by the requisite majority of voters, duly authenticated and published, is p