Louis Stores, Inc. v. Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control

Plaintiff, Louis Stores, Inc., owns and operates a number of retail grocery stores in Alameda and Contra Costa Counties and holds a wholesale beer and wine license and separate retail off-sale beer and wine licenses for 33 of the stores. It brought this proceeding in the superior court to obtain a writ of mandate to compel the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control to vacate a decision revoking the wholesale license. 1 The trial court denied the peremptory writ of mandate, and Louis Stores has appealed.

The proceeding culminating in this appeal was commenced in 1956 when the California Beer Wholesalers Association (then known as the Northern California Beer Distributors Association) filed an accusation with the department charging Louis Stores with failing to perform the functions of a wholesaler as required of wholesale licensees by section 23779 of the Business and Professions Code. This section provides: “No wholesale license shall be issued to any person who does not in good faith actually carry on or intend to carry on a bona fide wholesale business by sale to retail licensees of the alcoholic beverage designated in the wholesale license, and the department may revoke any…