In Re Smith

HENSHAW, J.

The petitioner is in custody for the alleged violation of a criminal ordinance of the county of Los Angeles, making it a misdemeanor to erect or maintain gasworks, gasholders, gas-tanks, etc., within a boundary fixed in the ordinance. Before the passage of the ordinance, petitioner and others had erected the gasworks within the district, and were supplying gas to consumers—inhabitants of the cities of Pasadena and Los Angeles. After his works were so in operation the ordinance in question was adopted. Its effect, if valid, is to suppress his business. In his petition he set up, with other matters, that the district within which it is declared to be illegal to erect or maintain gasworks is a sparsely settled rural community lying between the cities of Los Angeles and South Pasadena on the south and the city

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of Pasadena and the city of Los Angeles upon the north, through the center of which runs a wash which is known as the Arroyo Seco. This wash is a sandy, rocky waste between two hundred and three hundred yards in width, and constitutes ninety-five per cent of the district described in the ordinance. In the immediate vicinity of the gasworks there are no dwelling-houses, none nearer than a distance of about three hundred yards, and the whole district contains only fifteen places of habitation. It is further alleged that the works are safely and securely constructed so as to be free from danger from leakage or explosion of gas; that the gas made is such as is ordinarily distributed to consumers in the various cities of the state; that it is impossible, owing to the secure method of construction, for any odors to escape, and that the works as constructed and operated do not and cannot injuriously affect the health, safety, welfare, or comfort of the citizens of the county of Los Angeles or of. any of them. Other matters are set forth touching the motive of the board of supervisors in passing the ordinance, it being herein asserted that it was passed to perpetuate the monopoly of another gas company. The ordinance itself is fully set forth in the petition.

It being within the powers of the board of supervisors in proper eases to regulate, or even to prohibit, the manufacture of gas within prescribed limits, this ordinance upon its face would appear to be innocuous and valid. It became necessary, therefore, for the pleader in his petition to set forth the matters