Jasper County Democrat, Volume 9, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 December 1906 — RETAIL LICENSE UNNECESSARY. [ARTICLE]

RETAIL LICENSE UNNECESSARY.

Supreme Court Holds Wholesale Liquor Dealers Can Sell to Consumer In Five Oallon Quantities. The SupYeme Court last Friday held that selling intoxicating liquors to consumers in quantities of more than five gallons at a time without a county license is not a public offense under the Nicholson Law, and the criminal code, as enacted by the last legislature, Herman Bock, of Gibson county, tfas prosecuted for selling a fivegallon keg of beer to a man who was not a retail dealer, the charge being based on the statntes which declare it unlawful to sell “any spirituous, vinous or malt liquors without first procuring * * * a license asbereinafter provided," and imposing a fine for “transacting any business without a license when such is required by law.” The court says that the “license as hereinafter provided" is required only on the part of those who sell at retails and it was clearly not the legislative intent to forbid everybody but licensed retail dealers to sell liquor in large quantities, especially as one section of the statute expressly exempts wholesale dealers from the necessity of obtaining licenses. It was urged on the court that the Legislature clearly “intended to do away with the sale of intoxicating liquors by the so-called ‘quart shops’,” and that only “wholesale dealers” in the ordinary sense of the term are exempt. But the court said that manifestly the opportunities which were formerly afforded for violating liquor laws by persons selling by the quart are not afforded to an unlicensed dealer, who is prohibited from selling to the consumer lees than five gallons at a time. Especial attention is called by the court to the fact that if any part of the liquor sold is drunk on the premises, or if only part of it is delivered to the purchaser at a time, the law is violated, unless the seller has a saloon license. A judgment holding the affidavit bad on which Bock was prosecuted was affirmed.