Las Vegas City Commission Minutes, January 7, 1947 to October 26, 1949, lvc000006-302

278 (3) Particularly that portion of said proposed ordinance which requires every person licensed under the proposed subdivision to furnish and distribute to any applicant, "without discrimination as to character of service furnished and fee charged therefor," information custom­arily and regularly furnished by licensee thereunder to the operators of race horse books in the City of Las Vegas duly licensed under the provisions of said Ordinance No. 325. There is no question that the City of Las Vegas, through its Board of City Commissioners has the authority and power under its Charter to regulate and license businesses of all kinds, but in the exercise of such power there are certain fundamental rights which the City, or even the State itself, cannot take away. In the absence of authority granted by the legislature, a municipal corporation has no right to fix the price of commodities sold at retail (see 43 C.J. 413, Section 544). The State Legislature of the State of Nevada gave to the City of Las Vegas, Nevada, through its Charter the power to regulate and license businesses of all kind. The extent to which the Board of Commissioners can go depends upon the type and kind of business which it is endeavoring to regulate. In the operation of an ordinary business, a person has the right to fix the price at which he wishes to sell his commodity, and he has the right to refuse to sell at any price and the right to select his customers, and to sell to some and refuse to sell to others; to sell to some at one price and on one set of terms and to sell to others at a different price and on a different set of terms (see Union Pacific Coal Co. vs. U.S., 173 Fed. 737). This is true only, however, when the business is not "affected by the public interest." In Ex Parte Kazas (90 Pac. (2d) 962) the court said, "the police powers extend to legislation promoting the public health, safety, morals, and general welfare of the people." Continuing with its opinion the court, referring to the case of PEOPLE vs. NEBBIA (a New York case regulating the milk business) "police power is the least limitable of the powers of government and extends to all the great public needs. Statutes aiming to establish a standard of social justice, to conform law to the accepted standards of the community, to stimulate the production of a vital food product by fixing living standards of prices for the producer, are to be inter­preted with that degree of liberality which is essential to the attainment of the end in view. Courts should be clearly convinced that the legislation under consideration is unconstitutional before declaring it invalid; and all presumptions are in favor of the constitutionality of the legislative enactment." In a California case wherein the legislative body had passed a statute regulating the lemon industry and regulating prices to be charged, the amount to be produced, etc., the court stated, "We do not feel that we are in any way or to any extent extending the principles of law enunciated in the authorities cited above by hold­ing such a business is so affected with the public interest or clothed with a public use as to justify the state in its exercise of its police power to impose such reasonable regulations upon the quantity that may be produced and marketed therein as will save the industry from destruction and from ruthless competition, the direct effect of overproduction. 'Where business is affected with a public interest or clothed with a public use,* it may be regulated under the general welfare division of the police power. Al­though the phrase 'affected with a public interest' has never been exactly defined, a study of the cases reveal that, running through all of the cases, one constant principle, namely, that the regulated trade must affect the property of a large body of the members politic. Such legislation to be justified and supported must at least promote the welfare of the general public as contrasted with that of a small percentage or insignificant numerical proportion of the citizenry." There is no question in my mind but that the business proposed to be regulated by the above proposed ordinance is "intrastate", and not "interstate", nor is it a public utility. There is no question but that the "information", the distribution of which is lic­ensed by the said proposed ordinance, is a commodity which ceases its interstate phase and becomes intrastate when distributed by the owner thereof to the various purchasers, and the City of Las Vegas through its Board of Commissioners has a right to charge a license fee therefor. If the business is one which is "affected with a public interest," the regulation can be much greater than if it is not. It is to be noted that every statute or ordinance which attempts to regulate a lawful business inserts therein the reason for the particular regulation and the evil which the regulation intends to overcome. In the case of NELSEN vs TILLY (Neb. 1939) (269 N.W. 388; 126 A.L.R. 729), construing a statute in a declaratory judgment proceedings covering the regulation of motor vehicles the court said, "the legislature under its police power, has the right to regulate the purchase and sale of motor vehicles for the protection and general welfare of the public."