Alcohol license

“ This court held the section valid for the following reasons:
'The power of the federal government, granted by the Eighteenth Amendment, to enforce the prohibition of the manufacture, sale and transportation of intoxicating liquor carries with it power to enact any ligislative measures reasonably adapted to promote the purpose. The denaturing in order to render the making and sale of industrial alcohol compatible with the enforcement of prohibition of alcohol for beverage purposes is not always effective. ”

“ In other words, it clearly appears that a liquor law, to be capable of effective enforcement must, in the opinion of the Legislatures and courts of the several states, be made to apply either to all liquors of the species enumerated, like beer, ale or wine, regardless of the presence or degree of alcoholic content; or if a more general description is used, such as distilled, rectified, spirituous, fermented, malt, or brewed liquors, to all liquors within that general description regardless of alcoholic content;b or to such of these liquors as contain a named percentage of alcohol ”

“ This suggestion is rather fanciful than otherwise, particularly as applied to this case, for that the other states, particularly New York to which this alcohol was exported, have never undertaken to control either the manufacture, sale, or use of alcoholic spirits. In the interpretation of all statutes and in case of doubt it is a well recognized rule of interpretation that the court must consider what evil it was existing prior to the enactment of the statute that the statute was intended to correct or remedy. ”

“ The Volstead act declares that the phrase "intoxicating liquor," as used in the act, "shall be construed to include 'all liquors' containing one-half of one percentum or more of alcohol by volume which are fit for use for beverage purposes."
Since everybody knows that a drink containing one-half of one per cent. of alcohol is not in fact an intoxicating drink, a vast amount of indignation has been aroused, among opponents of National Prohibition, by this stretching of the letter of the Amendment. ”

“ To support the affirmative, the plaintiff in error maintains that alcohol is, in itself, a useful commodity, not necessarily noxious, and is a subject of property; that the very statute under consideration, by various provisions, and especially by those which permit, in express terms, the manufacture of intoxicating liquors for mechanical, medicinal, culinary, or sacramental purposes, recognizes those qualities, and expressly authorizes the manufacture ”

“ This department which began in weakness, and was for years regarded as fanatical even by many members of the W. C. T. U. has entered upon an era of victories. The National Pure Food Law requires the percentage of alcohol in patent medicines, and the presence of different dangerous drugs, to be stated upon the label. The prohibition law of Georgia forbids physicians to prescribe alcoholic beverages, absolute alcohol only being permitted. Kansas has amended her law so that whisky drug-stores are eliminated. If physicians prescribe alcohol the law forbids charge for it. ”

“ There a section of the National Prohibition Act forbidding the sale of denatured alcohol without a compliance with certain regulations was assailed as beyond the authority of Congress under the Eighteenth Amendment upon the ground that the amendment relates only to traffic in intoxicating liquor for beverage purposes, and that, as denatured alcohol is not usable as a beverage, authority to prevent or regulate its sale is not given to Congress by the amendment, but remains exclusively in the states. ”

“ The first section does, indeed, make it penal to manufacture, sell, barter, deliver, store, or keep in possession any spirituous, malt, vinous, fermented, brewed, or other liquors which contain alcohol, and are used as a beverage, and declares all such liquors to be contraband, and against the morals, good health, and safety of the state, and authorizes them to be seized wherever found, without warrant, and turned over to the state commissioner ”

“ Thus to an extent we intrust daily the destinies of an appreciable proportion of our public to a class of men who certainly have done little to earn general confidence. In nearly every State, if not in all, laws exist imposing penalties upon the dealer in alcohol who sells drink to a person who is already in a state of intoxication ”

“ Today, I am pleased to announce that we're issuing a new rule. Every state must pass a law making it illegal for anyone under 21 to drive with alcohol in their blood. If they're caught, their driver's licenses must be suspended. ”

“ Your Congress should at least pass, as soon as possible, a Federal law completely outlawing the drinking of alcoholic liquor, no matter how moderate, to anyone who has a driver's license for motor cars, buses, aeroplanes, or any other rapidly moving vehicle and make it a crime punishable with strict and heavy penalties. ”

“ And yet we are told that licensing the saloons is a bad business investment; that it costs more than it comes to; that the way to abolish poverty is to abrogate the liquor license law. Strange that the Prohibs should possess such transcendent business heads and such empty stomachs! Doubtless the drinking of liquor adds to the cost of our judiciary; doubtless it is responsible for some crime; but the question at issue is not one of liquor-drinking vs. teetotalism—it is a question of drinking licensed liquor or Prohibition aquafortis. ”

“ Next follow regulations for the sale of denatured alcohol, if any one ventures into the precarious business of making it, undaunted by the legal pitfalls and penalties provided. 'Manufacturers of and dealers in beverages of any kind' are not permitted to keep nor store denatured alcohol; they are in danger of the strong arm of the law if they so much as have a light green cask with red letters on it in their possession. ”

“ No narcotics were found, but hidden in the car were eleven five-gallon cans of alcohol without the tax stamps required by federal law. The brother and the alcohol were turned over to federal authorities and this prosecution followed. ”

“ Every permittee applying for a renewal has the burden of establishing his fitness; whereas, if permits are terminable only by revocation pursuant to the provisions in sections 5 and 9, the burden to justify closing the business because of some violation of the act or of the regulations is put upon the government. But section 6, as well as the rest of the act, draws an obvious distinction between the manufacture, etc., of intoxicating liquor and that of industrial alcohol and the preparations enumerated in section 4. ”

“ There never has been, never can, and never will be a law enacted that prevent men from drinking liquor, especially those in whom there is a dominant appetite for it. The idea of licensing men to sell liquor and punishing men for drinking it is monstrous. To be sure, they are not punished for drinking it in moderation, but no man can be moderate who has such an appetite as I have. Why license men to sell liquor, and then punish others for drinking it? What sort of sense or justice is there in it, anyhow? There is a double punishment for the drunkard, and none for the liquor-seller. ”

“ How far these restrictions and penalties were effective, appears from the statue of 1695, in the preamble of which is a complaint that divers persons who had obtained license to sell liquor to be taken away and not drunk in their houses, did, notwithstanding, "give entertainment to persons to sit drinking and tippling there," while others who "have no license at all are yet so hardy as to run upon the law," to the "great increase of drunkenness and other debaucheries." ”

“ Any liquor entered as wine, which contains more than twenty-two per centum of alcohol, whether it is entered as wine generally, or champagne or sparkling wine, is condemned to the use of the United States. The second proviso is, that packages of wines, brandies, or other spirituous liquors, shall contain not less than one dozen bottles in each package, and all such bottles shall pay an additional duty of three cents for each bottle. ”

“ Our laws license the sale of intoxicating drinks under certain restrictions on week days, but no man can claim the right under such license to cause mobs, riots, bloodshed or murder. Hence no man has, or can have, any right by license or otherwise to dispense liquors to intoxicated persons, nor to furnish sufficient liquor to cause intoxication. ”

“ Under prohibition, a drunken man is a marked man—he is branded at once as a law-breaker, and the attitude of the public is that of indignation. Under license, a drunken man is part of the system—and passes without comment. For this reason a small amount of drunkenness in a prohibition territory is so noticeable that many people are deceived into believing that there is more drunkenness under prohibition than under license. ”

“ Hence the government takes the position that the seller of intoxicating liquor is required by the statute to keep a permanent record of his sales, whether lawful or unlawful, and that failure to do so is itself a crime, from which it would follow that a conspiracy to effect a sale without such a record is an indictable offense. No question is made but that persons authorized to deal in alcoholic liquors under the Prohibition Act are required to make permanent records of their transactions. ”

“ Common experience has shown that the general and unrestricted use of intoxicating liquors tends to produceidleness, disorder, disease, pauperism, and crime. The power of regulating or prohibiting the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors appropriately belongs, as a branch of the police power, to the legislatures of the several states, and can be judiciously and effectively exercised by them alone, according to their views of public policy and local needs ”

“ In New Hampshire and Nebraska, and in several other States, a person arrested for drunkenness is given his liberty if he will disclose the name of the person who sold him the liquor on which he became intoxicated. In most of the other States (as in New York) the damages are not limited except by the facts of such case. In New York, too, the preliminary notice is insisted on. In other States (as Idaho) the seller's damage is the loss of his license, if notice not to sell has been properly served upon him. ”

“ If there was never another ounce of alcohol manufactured, the world would be none the loser either medicinally or commercially. My reason for making this statement is that prohibition of the sale of alcoholic beverages has been largely defeated because there have not been the proper safeguards thrown about the manufacture and sale of drug-store concoctions that can be had in any quantity as substitutes for alcoholic stimulants ”

“ Crime was exacerbated by orgies of liquor drinking by the common people, especially between 1730 and 1750, the sale of which did not have to be licensed as did ale. In 1736, it was required that retailers of brandy, rum, and other distilled spirituous liquors be licensed and to pay 50 pounds a year for their license, because excessive use had been detrimental to health, rendering persons unfit for useful labor and business, debauching their morals, and inciting them to vices. ”

“ To uphold the contention of the government, therefore, the language of section 10 must be taken to apply not only to those who hold government permits authorizing them to deal in intoxicating liquors under a familiar system of regulation, to whom it admittedly is applicable, but to every criminal violator of the National Prohibition Act, even though making only a single, isolated sale. ”

“ All Governments regard alcohol for drinking as a fit subject for taxation. When anyone buys a drink with alcohol in it a part of what he pays goes to the Government in the form of duty. On the other hand, when alcohol is used for trade purposes, for making varnish or something like that, there is no reason whatever why it should be charged with duty. But if the varnish manufacturer is to have alcohol duty-free what is to prevent him from using some of it for drinking? ”

“ No person shall keep alcohol in the State, except:
(1) In the establishment of a pharmacist, physician, dentist, veterinarian, wholesale druggist, university, college, school or manufacturing plant where the alcohol is used in industrial or scientific work or for the manufacture of pharmaceutical products where it is expressly permitted by the Commissioner to keep alcohol ”

“ It is announced, however, that the Government, struck with the dangers threatening the people by the increase of alcoholism, is preparing new legislation which will apply to sellers and consumers. For dealers it requires a license which will be granted only when competent authorities are satisfied of the need of the shop, or are given incontestable moral guarantees; prohibits their selling on credit, declaring all debts contracted for liquors null; forbids sales to children less than thirteen years old and to in-intoxicated persons ”

“ LIQUOR LAWS. In most Western countries the sale of alcoholic liquor is regulated by law. The original and principal object is to check the evils arising from the immoderate use of such liquor, in the interest of public order, morality and health; a secondary object is to raise revenue from the traffic. The form and the stringency of the laws passed for these purposes vary very widely in different countries according to the habits of the people and the state of public opinion. The evils which it is desired to check are much greater in some countries than in others. ”