In Re Kidd

Application by petitioner for writ of habeas corpus based upon the claim that his imprisonment for the vio lation of an ordinance of the city of Riverside is illegal, because the ordinance so violated is unconstitutional and void.

This ordinance, regularly adopted, in plain terms prohibits the sale of all intoxicating liquors in said city by any person, except that the council may issue a permit to keepers of hotels having forty bedrooms or more to sell vinous and malt liquors served in the dining-room thereof as part of a regular meal. The ordinance is claimed to destroy petitioner’s right to engage in business upon the same terms as other citizens, and that it creates a monopoly in favor of a certain class. Let the correctness of his conclusions be assumed, and we have a case where the law-making power is regulating a business, the tendency of which is injurious to the public morals, safety and welfare. “The statistics of every state show a greater amount of crime and misery attributable to the use of ardent spirits obtained at these retail liquor saloons than any other source. . . . There is no inherent right in a citizen thus to sell intoxicating liquors.” (Foster v. Police…