Housemoving Contractors Assn. v. City of Glendale

Opinion

Plaintiff appeals from a judgment sustaining as valid an ordinance of the defendant city. We affirm.

Plaintiff is an association of firms engaged in moving houses. In carrying out that business they transverse the streets of defendant city on trips originating outside the city and ending beyond the city. The city ordinance herein involved provides as follows:

We agree with the trial court that the city ordinance is not preempted by the Public Utilities Code provisions. The case law, embodied in many decisions, draws a distinction between municipal revenue taxes, which are preempted by state statutes such as are here relied on, and fees imposed by a city under its regulatory power to control and supervise a business that impose an unusual burden on the city for such services. The record here shows that the ordinance here before us is of the regulatory type and that the supervision fee thereby imposed is not preempted by the state statutes relied on by plaintiff.

The judgment is affirmed.

Woods, J., and McClosky, J., concurred.