Jasper County Democrat, Volume 7, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 June 1904 — TAX ON POOL TABLES VALID. [ARTICLE]

TAX ON POOL TABLES VALID.

The Lebanon city ordinance, taxing pool tables $250 each a year, was held valid by. the supreme court last week. The judgment fining Fred Wysong for keeping an unlicensed pool table was affirmed. Wysong had four pool tables, and had not paid any license fees at all. The attorneys for Wysong insisted that such a tax could only be justified as a revenue measure, and the legislative authority to regulate, restrain or license gave no power to enact an ordinance for raising revenue. Judge Gillett holds that the' keeping of pool tables for hire is a proper matter for the exercise of the police power. Moreover, he holds such business serves no useful end, and while it may perhaps in some instances be conducted in an innocent manner, yet the places where pool tables are kept are often the “nurseries of vice and crime.” In fixng a license fee, it is proper to take into account, not oxdy the direct expense of all the incidental consequences that are likely to subject the public to cost as a result of carrying on a business, and. as applied to harmful employments, he said it is to be inferred that the purpose of granting the power to license was to “keep the business in leash, rather, than to permit it to flourish.”