Rice

*33 Opinion

We granted a writ of review in these consolidated cases to determine whether respondent Alcoholic Beverage Controls Appeals Board (hereafter Board) exceeded its jurisdiction in reversing the decision of the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (hereafter Department) revoking real parties’ on-sale general licenses on grounds including the commission of crimes involving moral turpitude per se. We agree with the Department’s findings and determinations that the crimes of possession of cocaine and marijuana for sale involve moral turpitude as a matter of law. We further conclude that no clear abuse of discretion is demonstrated in imposing a penalty of revocation under such circumstances. Accordingly, we annul those portions of the orders of the Board reversing the Department’s decisions and direct reinstatement as hereinafter provided.

The procedural history and evidence disclosed in the administrative record is undisputed and recounted as follows:

The Accusations

On March 19, 1976, the Department filed two separate accusations against real parties in interest seeking suspension or revocation of the on-sale general liquor licenses pursuant to article XX, section…

I agree with my colleagues that in the present state of the law the possession of cocaine or marijuana for sale involves moral turpitude per se as that protean phrase is currently construed. Of course this standard is, as the majority forthrightly concedes, a shifting one, and the conduct itself is malum prohibitum and not malum in se. * But in any event, given applicable standards of review, the board had no legal right to substitute its notion of what constitutes “turpitude” for that of the director. I find it easy, however, to sympathize with the board’s inclination.

It is instructive to speculate on the practical impact of the revocation in the light of what the majority believes to be the object of the director’s edict, namely, not punishment of the malefactor, but protection of the public: Eyra Martinez will lose her interest in a valuable liquor license, because her husband and colicensee Alfredo possessed marijuana and cocaine in amounts sufficient to be sold. And she will lose it without a scrap of proof of her fault, without trial, and without demonstration of any rational nexus between her husband’s behavior and the business they operate, because the department, like…