In Re Ellis

SHENK, J.

The petitioner seeks her release from custody in this proceeding in

habeas corpus.

She was charged and convicted of keeping bees on her home place in the city of Los Angeles contrary to the provisions of a city ordinance. She attacks the constitutionality of the ordinance.

The facts are stipulated. The petitioner owns five lots contiguous to her home at 4041% Sequoia Street in the city of Los Angeles. The lots have a frontage of fifty feet each on Sequoia Street and a depth of 147.68. They abut upon

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lots of similar size which are improved with residences. The lots owned by the petitioner as well as other lots on Sequoia Street are improved with residences. The neighborhood is built up with the exception of an occasional vacant lot. In the rear half of one of her lots the petitioner keeps several hives of bees which she alleges are “maintained in a sanitary condition, are neither vicious nor dangerous, and are not the source of offensive smells or odors”. She also alleges that there are fruit trees and flowers growing upon her property.

The petitioner’s property is near the northerly boundary of a general district which is about one-half mile in width and extends southerly for about two miles. Beyond its westerly boundary is the Los Angeles River and beyond that is Griffith Park, the nearest boundary of which is approximately a half mile from the petitioner’s property.

The city ordinance under which the petitioner was convicted provides: “No person shall keep any bees in or upon any premises in this City. Nothing in this section shall be deemed or construed to prohibit the keeping of bees in a hive or box located and kept within a school house for the purpose of study or observation, or to prohibit the keeping of bees within that certain territory annexed to this city on May

22,

1915, and known as the ‘San Fernando District’, and that certain territory annexed to this city on June 14, 1916, and known as the ‘Westgate District’.”

This ordinance is an outgrowth of a prohibition against the keeping of bees enacted by the city council in 1905 pursuant to the power conferred by statutes of 1877-78, page 642, and the first freeholders charter of the city adopted in 1889. The statute referred to expressly included the power to regulate or prohibit the “keeping of bees”, specified as one of the subjects of police regulation which included also gambling houses, bawdy houses, and “any and all obnoxious, offensive, immoral, indecent or disreputable places of business or practice”. As new territory was annexed to the city of Los Angeles, exceptions were effected by ordinance as to the more rural communities, but as these communities became urban in character, they were included within the prohibition. Thus in 1917 an amended ordinance excluded from its provisions the Palms, San Fernando Valley, Bairdstown and Westgate additions to the city. In 1930 the Bairdstown addition was included within the scope of the ordinance, and in 1931 the Palms. So that when the return herein was made there were