Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University v. State Board of Equalization

WASTE, C. J.

Over the protest of petitioner, respondent State Board of Equalization has granted a license to the California Avenue Pharmacy at Palo Alto to sell intoxicating liquors. Petitioner contends that such action is illegal and the license void because issued in direct violation of the provisions of section 172a of the Penal Code, which prohibits the sale of intoxicating liquor within one and one-half miles of the grounds or campus of Stanford University. Petitioner is here seeking a writ of review of the action of the respondent board, and that the order granting and issuing the license be set aside and annulled as being beyond the jurisdiction of the board.

It is stipulated by the parties, in lieu of a return by respondents to the order to show cause issued herein, that “the principal grounds or campus of said university were and are located in Santa Clara county, California, and that the principal educational buildings and the principal administrative offices of said university, and all of its student dormitories were and are situated thereon, and its principal educational activities were and are there conducted, and more than 500 of its students then and now reside or lodge thereon, and that said university at all of said times had and still has an enrollment of more than 1000 students;

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that all of said facts were set forth in the aforesaid protest filed by petitioner”; that the California Avenue Pharmacy is located at 381 California Avenue in Palo Alto, and is 0.7 miles in the usual course of travel (but less in a straight line) from the nearest point on the boundary of the aforesaid campus of the university, as that boundary was defined and established by the board of trustees of the university on December 27, 1918; and that the administration building, which contains most of the principal administrative offices of the university, is located on the campus and is 2.25 miles from the California Avenue Pharmacy in the usual course of travel, but only 1.345 miles in a straight line. These stipulated facts bring the cause within the application of section 172a,

supra,

which, so far as applicable here, provides that every person is guilty of a misdemeanor who, “upon or within one and one-half miles of the university grounds or campus, upon which are located the principal administrative offices of any university having an enrollment of more than one thousand students, more than five hundred of whom reside or lodge upon such university grounds or campus, sells, gives away, or exposes for sale, any vinous or alcoholic liquors”.