In Re Pierce

The petitioner was convicted in the justice’s court of the fourth judicial district of Glenn county of a misdemeanor,'under a complaint charging him with “commencing and conducting the business of retailing and selling spirituous liquors” within said county of Glenn, without .first obtaining a license for that purpose, in violation of certain provisions of Ordinance No. 62 of said county. The petitioner, upon his conviction, was sentenced by the court to a term of ninety days’ imprisonment in the county jail of O-lenn county, and, in addition thereto, to pay a fine of $200.

The only point originally made by the petitioner was that the complaint upon which he was prosecuted and convicted does not state facts constituting an offense under the ordinance whose provisions the complaint purports to accuse him of violating; but in their brief, filed subsequently to the hearing before this court, counsel for the petitioner claim that those provisions of said ordinance relating to the business of retailing spirituous liquors are void, for the alleged reason that they seek “to impose a license tax upon individual sales and not upon the business of selling.” {Merced Co. v. Helm, 102 Cal.…