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88 Ark. 273

Zinn v. State

Supreme Court of Arkansas

Decided November 30, 1908

Supreme Court of Arkansas · decided 1908-11-30

Winfíeld, Tudge; STATEMENT by the court. The grand jury of Perry County, Arkansas, at the August term, 1908, returned the following indictment against appellant : “The grand jury of Perry County, in the name and by the authority of the State of Arkansas, accuse Julius Zinn of the crime of soliciting orders for the sale of intoxicating liquors in prohibited territory, committed as follows, to-wit: The said Julius Zinn, in the county and State aforesaid, on the 25th day of…

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““It shall he unlawful for any liquor dealer, firm, or corporation engaged in the sale of intoxicating liquors in tins state to in any manner through agents, circulars, posters, or newspaper advertisements, solicit orders for such sales of intoxicating liquors in any territory of this state wherein it would be unlawful to grant a license to make such sales.” Laws 1907, ». 327, § 1.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including Danciger v. Stone

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

affirmed · Decided 1908-11-30

How this case has been cited

Cited by 17 later decisions — most recently December 1955

16 state decisions

120190819101920193019401950decided

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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Wood, J.,

¶1(after stating the facts.) The statute under which appellant was indicted and convicted is as follows:

¶2“Section 1. It shall be unlawful for any liquor dealer, firm or corporation engaged in the sale of intoxicating liquors in this State, to, in any manner, through agents, circulars, posters, or newspaper advertisements, solicit orders for such sales of intoxicating liquors in any territory of this State wherein it would be unlawful to grant a license to make such sales. Provided, that the term ‘newspaper advertisement’ as used in this section does not refer to liquor advertisements in papers published within licensed territory, unless said papers are sent into prohibition territory by the saloon-keepers or their agents for advertising purposes.

¶3“Section 2. The presence of any such liquor dealer, firm or corporation, through agents or otherwise, in such prohibition territory, soliciting or receiving orders from any person therein, shall constitute a violation of this act, and on conviction thereof shall be fined not less than $200 nor more than $500 for each such offense.” Acts 1907, c. 135.

¶4The statute is a valid exercise of the police power of the-State, and does not conflict in any particular with the powér of Congress “to establish post-offices and post roads” and -to-designate what shall be carried by and what excluded from the United States mails.” Const. U. S., art. 1, § 8; Ex parte Jackson, 6 Otto, 727.

¶5The statute does not relate to that subject at all. It simply prohibited the soliciting of orders for the sale of intoxicating liquors in territory where the sale of such liquors is prohibited. The gravamen of -the offense is the soliciting of orders for the sale. It matters not how the circular for that purpose reaches the prohibited territory, and the statute does not undertake to designate or condemn the manner by which the circulars may be carried into or excluded from the prohibited' territory. It is the presence of the circular there for the unlawful purpose of soliciting that the Statute denounces and prohibits, not the method by which they- may be conveyed there or distributed. Had the statute made the use of the United States mail for sending circulars into districts where the sale of intoxicating liquors is prohibited the -crime, then the argument of the learned counsel for appellant would be sound. But as such is not the case his contention can not be sustained. The judgment of the circuit court is right.

¶6Affirmed.

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