People v. Van Wong

California Court of Appeal Dec 1, 1958Published

Before: David

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Holding. Los Angeles Municipal Code Section 42.03, which prohibits the sale of tickets within 250 feet of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, is unconstitutional because it is discriminatory and lacks a reasonable relationship to the public's use of streets and public grounds.

Issues

Whether Los Angeles Municipal Code Section 42.03 is a valid exercise of municipal police power.
Whether the ordinance is unconstitutionally discriminatory in its application to ticket sales on public property.

Disposition. affirmed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“The rule in determining whether the act is in conflict with constitutional guaranties is whether or not the act is broad enough to authorize such unconstitutional act.”

“It seems patently discriminatory to hold that sales may be made at a ticket booth on the public grounds, but cannot be made in a single instance from a citizen's pocket.”

“If the general public user is not affected one way or the other by the proscribed activity, it cannot validly be proscribed.”

165 Cal.App.2d Supp. 821 (1958) THE PEOPLE, Appellant,

EUGENE VAN WONG, Respondent.

California Court of Appeals.

Dec. 1, 1958. Roger Arnebergh, City Attorney (Los Angeles), Philip E. Grey, Assistant City Attorney, and William E. Doran, Deputy City Attorney, for Appellant.

George Chatterton, City Public Defender, for Respondent.

DAVID, J.

Section 42.03 of Los Angeles Ordinance Number 77,000, the Municipal Code, was held invalid by the trial judge, who sustained a demurrer to the complaint against the defendant and dismissed it. The complaint charged the defendant with sale of and offer to sell a ticket admitting one to a Los Angeles Coliseum event, conjoining in the charges all the circumstances proscribed within 250 feet of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum "upon and along a public street, sidewalk, alley, and publicly owned park and place."

[1] (1) It is asserted that this a valid police regulation to prohibit the practice of ticket scalping. On its face, the ordinance does not purport to do so:

(a) It makes no distinction between sales of tickets above the quoted price, and those below it.

(b) It makes no distinction between the private individual who passes his "spare ticket" to a friend and receives the price while on public property, and those who are doing business of selling tickets.

Appellant's counsel urges, that under selective enforcement, [165 Cal.App.2d Supp. 823] this would never happen. It is damning that it could. [2] "It does not answer the charge that the act in question is unconstitutional to say that a person clothed with such power may not see fit to use the power. The rule in determining whether the act is in conflict with constitutional guaranties is whether or not the act is broad enough to authorize such unconstitutional act." (In re Application of Blanc (1927), 81 Cal.App. 105, 113 [252 P. 1053], quoting People v. Pace (1925), 73 Cal.App. 548, 560 [238 P. 1089].)

[3] (c) It leaves legal ticket sales or scalping at every club, newsstand, pool hall or other place in the city, and picks out the 250 feet zone for application of the ordinance. In this latter aspect, it is clearly invalid: cf. Justesen's Food Stores, Inc. v. City of Tulare (1938), 12 Cal.2d 324 [84 P.2d 140].

People v. Van Wong

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DAVID, J.

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