Ex parte Mansfield

Petitioner was convicted in Butte county under a complaint charging him with carrying on the business of selling distilled, fermented, malt, vinous,and other spirituous liquors, without having first procured a license so to do, contrary to the provisions of ordinance No. 124, Butte county ordinances, entitled “ An ordinance to regulate the business of selling liquors in Butte county, California, to provide for licensing the same, and for the revocation of such licenses in certain cases, and prescribing penalties for the violation thereof.” The ordinance is pleaded in full in the complaint. Defendant was sentenced to pay a fine of one hundred and fifty dollars, and in default of payment to be imprisoned in theo county jail of Butte county in the proportion of one day’s imprisonment for every dollar of the fine.

Ordinance 124 provides as follows:

Section 4 of said ordinance provides for certain restrictions upon the issuance of these licenses, requiring as a prerequisite a written recommendation signed by at least ten out of twenty responsible freeholders, residing or doing business of a permanent or respectable character nearest the place where the said applicant or applicants…