Harris

Malcolm E. Harris, Director of the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, appeals from an order denying the department’s petition for a writ of mandate to compel the Alcoholic Beverage Control Appeals Board to set aside its decision reversing certain orders of the department denying petitions for the transfer and reissuance of distilled spirits wholesaler’s and importer’s licenses and ordering the revocation of those licenses.

It is stipulated that prior to 1955 Park & Tilford Distillers Corporation, a licensed manufacturer of distilled spirits, also held both a distilled spirits wholesale and a distilled spirits import license. Section 23771 of the Business and Professions Code 1 provided then, as it does now, that a manufacturer of distilled spirits may hold only a distilled spirits manufacturer’s license, and section 23772 2 prohibited then, as it does now, a manufacturer from holding any interest, directly or *307 indirectly, in a wholesaler’s license. However, those sections were avoided by Park & Tilford Distillers Corporation pursuant to an exception in section 23774, which likewise provided then as it does now: “The provisions of sections 23771 and 23772 do not prevent…