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Late Hour Ordinance Vetoed

Late Hour Ordinance Vetoed image
Parent Issue
Day
1
Month
July
Year
1892
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

Mayor Doty vetoed the ordinance relative to closing the saloons, which gave the saloons an extra hour at night. His reasons are ably given, as follows: To the Honorable the Common Couneil: Gentlemen.- I herewith return to you without my approval an ordinance passed by your honorable body in couneil June 20, 1892, entitled "An ordinance relative to the closing of saloons, bars in restaurants and elsewhere." I assign my reasons therefor, as follows, to-wit: First. Because it is inconsistent with a wise and safe public policy to permit the transaction of business which is especially within pólice supervisión, by statute of the state, at an hour when that supervisión is most difficult to exercise. Second. Because very many of the citizens who are engaged in the liquor trafflc have privately remonstrated with me against the passage of the ordinauce in question, alleging that the tendency thereof is to compel them to keep their places open to the maximum limit of time permitted, thereby lengthening their hours of labor far beyond the bounds which a wise regard for the laws of nature and health imposes upon sane and reasonable men. The stress of competition rules the liquor trade as well as all the other occupations of men. Let us not force these unwilling toilers to prolong their labors fora livelihood far into the silent watches of the night, while the merchant, the mechanic and the laborer can or should quietly sleep, conscience clear in the thouget that they have so divided the day that there are eight hours for labor, eight hours for sleep and eight for the service of God and their fellow men. Third. Because the interest of the city of Ann Arbor is coextensive and coexistent with that of the University, and any action which your honorable body takes, which would tend ■ in any degree to check or paralyze the growth and popularity of thatgreat institution of leaming, would be visited upon our city to its tenfold detriment of loss. I am convinced that the scandal and disgrace which would attaeh to your licensing midnight saloons in our city would spread and ramify to every section of the land, and loving and anxious paFents in many a home both far and near would hesitate and refuse to commit their dearest and-their best to the fostering care of a municipality which regarded so lightly the moral responsibility, which heavily rests upon the constituted authority of a college town. And lastly. My sense of duty, to the families of our own citizens who otherwise might be deprived of the companionship and protection of fathers and husbands and brothers and sons during those hours of the night when the home should be their resting place and their delight, impels me to withhold my approval from the ordinance in question. In returning it to your honorable body with my absolute and unqualified veto permit me to express my sorrow that your undue haste ín pushing the same to its passage, three readings at one session of an ordinance of so much importance, has led the uncharitable to suppose that you were over anxious and zealous for its enactment. As for myself I shall indulge the thought (and this rather from the fact that I know your honorable body to be more than usually highminded and sincere) that had you given the ordinance and all its bearings the delibérate attention its importance demands, had you passed it along the ordinary course of its readings and touched the popular pulse from time to time, as the ordinance pursued the orderly tenor of its way, you would never at the end havegiven it your sanction and approval. Williaji G. Doty, Mayor. City of As Arbor, I Mayor's Office, June 24th, 1892. f To tíie Honorable tlie Coinmon Coiaicil: I herewith return to you without my approval so much of the proceedings of your honorable body as relates to the following resolution passed at your last session. "By Alderman "Wines: Kesolved, That the Mayor is hereby instructed to order all side screens of whatever kind or nature in saloons in this city removed within ten days from this date." My reasons therefor are as follows: lst. Because it is incompetent for the Common Council to "instruct" the Mayor to act outside the sphere of his official duty as prescribed by law. Neither the ordinances of this city nor the statute law of this state repose in the mayor pólice functions with reference to "side screens, etc.,'" in places where liquor is sold or kept for sale. The statute regulating the liquor trafflc expressly designates sheriffs, marshals, constables and police officers as the proper agents for its enforcement. 2nd. Because the principie involved in the said resolution if acquiesced in would render gross interference with the executive prerogative possible if not probable at the hands of the legislative body. 3rd. Because if there were no legal objection to the resolution the mayor of a city such as ours, performing his proper f unctions, already almost burdensome, for a salary of one dollar per annum, owes it to his own self-respect, if not to that of the city and the office to object to and refuse the imposition of labors for the performance of which a pólice forcé is appointed and liberally paid. 4th. Because the resolution is uncalled for and gratuitous. For the Council, and certainly the mover of the resolution, ought to know if they do not, that the pólice of the city to the best of their limited numerical ability are rigorously enforcing that section of the statute above referred to which requires the removal of curtains, screeus, partitions or other things weich obstruct the view, during the ltours prohibited by law, of bars or places in rooms where liquors are kept and sold; and this with the acquiescence and approval of all good citizens who are engaged in the trafflc which the statute legalizes and regulates.

Article

Subjects
Ann Arbor Argus
Old News