In Re Tepper

WORKS, J.

Petitioner is in the custody of the chief of police of Los Angeles under a judgment convicting him of a violation of section 79 of Ordinance No. 41,950 of the. municipality, as amended by a later enactment. Section 11 of the ordinance, which is introductory to the sections following it, reads: “The amount or rate of license fees to be paid to the City of Los Angeles by any person, firm, association or corporation engaged in or carrying on any profession, trade, calling, or occupation hereinafter designated is hereby fixed and established as hereinafter in this ordinance provided, and such license fee shall be paid by every person, firm, association or corporation engaged in carrying on any such profession, trade, occupation or calling in the City of Los Angeles.” Section 79 provides: “For every person, firm or corporation conducting, managing or carrying on the business of a retail drugstore where spirituous, vinous or malt alcoholic liquors, containing more than one-half of one per cent of alcohol by volume, are sold, distributed or given away for medicinal purposes upon a physician’s prescription, fifty cents (50c) for each such prescription filled; provided nothing in this ordinance shall be deemed or construed to apply to prescriptions containing other ingredients than spirituous, vinous or malt alcoholic liquors containing more than one-half of one per cent of alcohol by volume. The license provided for in this section shall be payable monthly, and in ascertaining

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the amount of license to he paid, the person, firm or corporation procuring such license shall render to the City Clerk a written statement, sworn to before some officer authorized to administer oaths, showing the number of prescriptions during the month next preceding the date of such statement.” Petitioner, who was conducting a retail drugstore at the time of his arrest, is suffering punishment under his conviction because of the fact that he failed both to pay the license fee and to make the statement provided for in section 79. As, however, the statement is required merely for the purpose of ascertaining the amount of the license fee, we need concern ourselves only with the part of the section denouncing a failure to pay the fee prescribed. If, as claimed by petitioner, the requirement that the license fee be paid is void, the requirement that the statement be made falls with it.