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4 Colo. 45

Hetzer v. People

Supreme Court of Colorado

Decided December 15, 1877

Supreme Court of Colorado · decided 1877-12-15

<p>1. The legislature is competent to confer concurrent jurisdiction upon the city and county authorities to demand each a license from an individual for vending spirituous liquors within the city limits.</p> <p>2. Where the legislature vests either in the city or county authorities the exclusive right to license vendors of spirituous liquors, a license to a vendor from the authority exclusively authorized to grant it is all that can be required. (Patón v. The People, 1 Col. 79, distinguished.)</p>

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1877-12-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 7 later decisions — most recently April 1912

1 district · 6 state decisions

3018771880189019001910decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Thatcher, C. J.

¶1There can be no question that it is *46competent for the legislaturedo confer concurrent jurisdiction upon the city and county authorities to demand each a license from an individual for vending spirituous liquors within the limits of a city.

¶2When such laws are enacted and penalties prescribed for their violation, the vendor of liquors within a city, unless armed with a license from both city and county (where a license from each is required), will not be protected from prosecution. One act may constitute two distinct offenses. It is no less clear, that the legislature may vest either in the city or county authorities the exclusive right to license vendors of spirituous liquors, and that when, in unequivocal terms, the sole authority to license is lodged either in the city or county, but one license will be required.

¶3Section eight of chapter LUI, R. S., 1868, concerning “Licenses,” provides that the board of county commissioners may grant licenses to keep saloons, hotels, public houses, or groceries, upon the conditions therein named.

¶4Section nine provides, that upon application for licenses to keep saloons- or groceries, the board may reject or grant the same in their discretion.

¶5Section eleven provides, that “the board of trustees, or common council of every incorporated town or city, shall have exclusive authority to license saloons, groceries, and all places wherein spirituous, vinous, malt, or other intoxicating liquors are sold by quantities less than one quart.”

¶6The plaintiff in error, as alleged in the information, was the keeper of a saloon within the meaning of this chapter, in the incorporated town of Nederland, in the county of Boulder. The board of trustees of Nederland had issued to him a license authorizing him to keep the saloon. He held no license from the board of county commissioners. This the court below thought was necessary, and accordingly, upon the agreed statement of facts, found him guilty.

¶7The conviction was error. The town license was a complete protection. Not by mere implication, but by express *47words, the authority of the board of trustees to issue the license is exclusive. This case is clearly distinguishable from Paton v. The People, 1 Col. 79.

¶8The opinion in that case rested largely upon the ground that the power to license was not declared to be exclusively vested in the city of Black Hawk.

¶9Judgment reversed and cause remanded.

¶10Reversed.

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